The Penitent
by counselor
Summary: A Cathedral at midnight. Bella never celebrated.  Edward never seen.  She's dried leaves.  Is that his trench-coat flapping or a pair of broken wings?  The world is ending. It's time for her to come out of her cocoon.  It's time for Edward to fly.
1. Chapter 1

The Penitent

Chapter One

I think of an aerial view, a gray geometric grid of lines, angles and ants. Focus down. I am a speck, seated in St. James Cathedral, located in the center of the highest crime area in this gritty city that smells of oil refineries and burning hops.

A celluloid of four seasons moving through a clicking projector. We are at late winter. A calendar torn, months blowing rapidly past. Stop on February. A pocket watch, cracked glass face, through it the hour shows midnight.

I move slowly through pew forty-five, left-center aisle. Rearrange hymnals and offering envelopes in the small wooden racks on the back of each pew. The desolation of a weekend of Masses. I straighten the books, and dig out the gum wrappers from the deep wooden pockets. My soft oily rag wipes over the pew's honey-colored wood so it can breathe. I smooth my hands on my apron and scoot along the wooden bench to the next slatted compartment.

Vibration under my skin. I press my thumb against my knee, conjure the droning voice of Father Charles. His preaching hasn't sounded here since this morning. His imagined voice is a perfect backdrop for the vivid stories I create to pass the time, or to make it stand still. Naked stories I step into, leaving my clothes behind, my life.

Twenty-four and the fantasies of my protector dazzling me from a far-away pew are tales spun by a sojourner looking for the faraway city of "happily-ever-after."

I feel a draft. In front of the altar candles flicker in red cups like caged dancing sprites. The movement lures my mind into an incense-induced trance.

The shuffling sound is first. I don't turn to look. It is the holy battle. Perhaps. The doors of this grand place are supposed to be locked. Father often falls asleep before he remembers to do so. Too much sacramental wine swirls in the cup he holds against his belly as he snores comfortably in his study.

And so he crawls forward. The penitent. Passes my seat on the aisle. He is a strong force of regret. His head is lifted. His gaze is set on the tiers of flames lit by those who purchase God's attention. He is owning his sins.

I only breathe in. Throat constricted.

Up the aisle he drags on his knees against the long ribbon of hard red and gold linoleum. His long black coat drags behind, beleaguered wings, a dark angel. Arms held away from his body, hands open, fingers spread in silent plea.

Slow and careful. He reaches the candles. He staggers to stand. He lifts one of the tall punks standing on end in a clear cup, and lights its end in one of the flames. Touches its glowing tip to the wick of one of the red wax-filled cylinders. The flame catches and burns brightly, a continuous licking prayer for absolution.

I feel his relief. He replaces the punk in the holder. He turns, eyes cast downward, jaw strong, but not clenched. A soft expression on a hidden face, and even so I sense he's no innocent. Even as I understand he's beautiful.

And broken.

How do I know? All of my life I am silent in this house of God. Always watching. One of the statues, crying silent red tears that cease to disturb they've grown so familiar.

For many years I've watched for him-Gabriel or Michael. I don't know, I can't guess. Now I sit in all the grayness. I wait.

He moves closer, hands in the pockets of his black trench coat, steps slow, head down. But he stops by me, even though I am the color of dried leaves. The lanterns overhead making his hair an errant halo.

"You see me, Little One." There is wonder in his tone, though his voice is soft as anointing oil. His eyes are deep and ringed by the blackest fringe, as if he needed any of that, as if I could resist him, fight him off, or worse, would want to.

"Of course I see you," I answer, not scoffing. I barely speak, he's that over-whelming.

His long-fingered hand reaches toward me, its elegance touching me lightly under my chin, lifting my head slightly. I regard his beatific features. Feel the red tears pulsing beneath my skin, my blood an under-ground spring of life that rushes so madly no one from the outside could guess.

And yet…he knows.

His thumb grazes my cheek. He whispers, "At last." The timbre of his voice is a low-chord. This is the vibration. I am untouched. Until him.

His gaze pulls me until I reach for the pew in front of me, easing myself forward as if to rise.

"Bella." I don't know my voice it's so open. With him, I am new.

He smiles. I lean a little. Toward him, not away.

He shakes his head. "I see you now…like this. You are quite something," he says, his lips as lovely as his hope.

"I…I'm nothing," I assure him.

"No," he counters, pained now, his finger cold against my lips. "No blasphemy."

"Isabella," I finally whisper against his fingers.

He whispers this in return, "Isabella. Bella." It's like a sad melody the way he says it. He looks at me so fervently. His chin is tucked, his eyes a furnace of interest. I need to stop such a look before I start to weep, but I'm held by this attention to every detail that is me.

He uses both hands now, to sift through my hair as if each strand were of value, to trace the line of my shoulders as if it is well-drawn, to cup my face, to lightly run his fingers over my brow, over my cheek, like the blind do to see the skin and the bones beneath, until I'm soft, and gripping my hands together to keep from clinging to him.

"How can this be?" he whispers in a voice as compelling as his touch. "You deserve…so much." He speaks to himself, not to me. He speaks about me, examines me, opens my hands and lifts them, and I stand. He is taller. He presses his lips against my knuckles, the tender feel of my first kiss. I know my hands smell of dust and taste of the oil soap on the cleaning cloth. I am so embarrassed.

But he holds my palm against his cheek as if it's meant to bless. All of my ugliness is devoured by his beauty, and all of my longing moves into him.

His eyes search and hold mine, and he gently releases my fingers.

"Forgive me. I had to touch you. Isabella. It's all starting now." He looks away. His face is twisting, conflicted. He pulls at his hair with both hands then lets his arms flop against his coat.

I take a step toward him, boldly grab his beautiful hands and weave my fingers with his and he almost crushes them in his grip, and it is the most glorious feeling.

"Isabella," he groans, his head dipping low, his eyes closed. "I've known you for so long, but not like this."

"You're not a man," I say.

He looks at me then. His expression makes my throat spasm, but I do not flinch from his deeply verdant gaze.

"You're something more."

Now he swallows just as loudly as I had.

"I sleep in the basement of this place," I say, my fingers still twining with his. "You can stay with me."

"Yes," he says, with his voice, his face. "That is what I long for."

I lead us then, across the expanse of the church, to the narrow hidden staircase in the far southern corner. He leads thereafter, down the wooden stairs, through the dark labyrinth. Coat sluffs against the narrow places, against the broken statuary that litters the hall. Steps soundless and sure, knowing the way to my room as if we have always shared it.

And while we walk, he sings, "Isabella. Isabella."

Room white and gray, colored like a moth's cocoon. Beauty can die in its wrappings if it never finds the strength to bloom.

Catacombs and graveyards. This room, a tomb of sorts. Buried here, unworthy. Upstairs all the gilding, the bell, like in my name, ringing out.

From behind, I lay my hands on his shoulders, pluck at his coat, slowly drag it down his arms, lay it on the cask at the end of my bed.

I say, "Excuse me," step behind the screen. Movements whisper as I take off the shell and leave the gauzy underthings. Vestments. Weightless, I move to him, he watches, he looks, but it is awe. Touching his hand, I move mine into his and pull him to my narrow bed, pulling back the covers, a broken-wing of invitation.

I lie on my back, hand still in his, guiding him. "Are you real?" he whispers. "Are you real?" I say.

He arranges my hair over my shoulders, my veil.

"Sleep now," I say. "I'll keep vigil."

"I don't need sleep," he says. "I'm adoring you."

He lays his head next to mine. He brackets me like a dark curve of strength. My mirror and my contrast.

Awake long in the darkness, but never more at rest. Able to see by the light of one another's presence. Warm in spite of the coldness that seeps across this city. Across this world.

When it's over and the streets have stopped chewing and devouring. He and I will start again.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

During the Tuesday morning service I see him, standing near the statue of St. Teresa, the one that cries red tears. He watches Father, seems to listen. But abruptly leaves in the middle of Father's homily. I look up, but he is not perched in the arched expanse above us, or on top of one of the confessionals like a folded seraphim.

Yet, as if we are tethered, I stand and bump wool-covered knees with those seated as I rush from my pew. Eyes slide over me, heads turn, and the ever-present coughing from deep down. I walk quickly away from Father's drip of sooty hope.

I am outside. March winds and grit sting my face. Smoke. I scan the gray rain-spattered street. East. West. Down the granite steps, to the sidewalk. Quick decision, turn, then frantic steps.

Far ahead, a graceful black flapping coat. Hurry. His elegant wake before he takes flight. Ballerina feet. Filled with hope and energy.

He never slows, or turns. Forward, black stocking covered head deep in his collar. His wide steps devour the sidewalk.

Where does he live? Where does an angel live?

He turns into a large gray building. Stones piled in dark and sooty layers, a sweep of chipped stairs, wino sitting off to the side, shaking hands, tattoos exiting around him. He pushes the smudged glass door wide. He is swallowed.

No hesitation. I climb, I push, I follow. Interior more gray. A dozen people here, in the foyer, sitting on couches, split leather, green and brown, lungs the same, split and colored like earth.

Big-belly behind a desk. He doesn't see me. Dried leaves. I blow past, I'm barely there. A staircase to the right, he's at the top, wide even steps that roll grit, and I touch the foggy, filthy silver handrail.

He rounds a corner, and I am not far behind. Up I go, and up, four flights that way, winding around, winding around, winding around, tied to his wings.

He reaches the fourth floor, fourth level of heaven. He stops before his dinged up door and unlocks it smoothly. He enters, but leaves the door open behind him.

I push through. Close it behind me. Lean against it, breathing my mortal breath, my lungs so fragile, so relentless.

His back is to me, and he takes off his coat. He lays it on the one hard wooden chair. His shirt is wrinkled and blue. His jeans are black-soft with age. His hair glorious fire, to me, pure. He hand plays the back of his neck. He does not turn and look at me.

I will not go. He knows it.

"Do you understand?" he says, over his shoulder, his strong straight shoulder that carries the weight he can't lay down, no matter how many candles he lights.

"You love me," I say.

He nods, turns, eyes lighting me. "You can't deny it."

"I don't want to."

"It's you I think of. I'd do it again. A hundred times."

"Yes. I heard you first. I knew it was you, on your knees. For me."

"For you," he repeats. "To show my love. It was so easy." His strong jaw twitches as he grinds his back teeth.

I step toward him now. Until I can touch his shoulder. "I already knew. I told you I already knew."

He lifts his hand. His fingers demand nothing. Ask for everything. I touch them, but they are not cold. Slowly he takes my hand. His grip is firm, but I can pull away if I choose. "Don't leave me."

He pulls me closer, cradles my hand against his chest. I feel his drumming celestial heart. I am beside him now. His profile is finger-drawn. His beauty shreds me and holds me together at once. It runs so deep, through each layer, through his soul to mine.

"It will always be like this," he says, and he touches my face. "It won't be tarnished. It won't be ruined." Now he does look at me. "Understand, my heart?"

I shake my head. "But I believe."

So he touches my face. "We have all we need."

"Are we the only ones?"

"It will seem that way. It's that consuming."

I close my eyes then, only aware of what I feel. Warm, close breath and skin. Lips moving over me, awakening beauty, crushing fear. Endearing words, clothes pulled away, gasp of discovery, bed soft on my back, flesh seeking, knees open, my heels digging in, my cries in the room, deeper, pain and light inside me, bursting through me like a rush of screaming desire brought to crescendo and higher until it bursts into a thousand particles of…us. He holds me above the city, wrapped in his arms, in his wings, in his voice. My love, my love. One. One.

And then the after, slow luscious descent, we float, stay connected, deflate, then quiet, then things…bare mattress. Single bulb swinging over us. Deep wet coughing moving along the hallway outside the bitten door. Water dripping. A deep core-hum from the walls. A web on the ceiling. A crack, many cracks, a spider of cracks. Shadows and stains. And the thumps overhead. The life.

His nakedness against mine. His heaving chest. Face lifting. Brow dark. Eyes looking into mine, his breathing with a faint rasp of exertion, his arms like columns of corded strength, shaking, ready to crash. Marked skin, bruises, scars, epitaphs. And the slow sink to his elbows, the words he can't find around his lips, his softened flesh between my legs, the firmness of his legs woven hastily, recklessly with my own.

Penance.


	3. Chapter 3

Penitent 3

He awakens me, but I am not asleep, just suspended, my hair like Medusa's springing around me. There's a rodent in here, a mouse, too big. I want to tell him, but my throat is dry. He holds a bottle to my lips and I noticed the black gloves without fingers. "Drink," he says, and I do and it's cold. Deep water, from the safest place. There is also food from a brown spotted bag which he opens.

"You were gone," I whisper, but it's dry, it's the air. But I had to come.

"I'll take you back."

"I'm not going."

"He'll miss you. He knows you left."

"He saw you, too. He sees everything."

"He's just a priest."

"Not more. Like you," I say, but he hands me a sandwich, the square yellow cheese on white bread. "The whole thing?"

"Yes. It's yours," he says proud. Then he pulls at the covers and my small breasts are there, my nipples poking. He touches me with one of the naked fingers. The black under his nails against my flesh, the black tamped into the grooves on his fingers.

He turns away then, and I hold the food, but its near my lap, almost forgotten. I don't want to not appreciate, so I take a big bite as he gathers my clothes. He shakes them out and smoothes them, but his hand catches on the wool.

So I lay the sandwich on the bed carefully, and I crawl before him. I am shivering and bare, and I kneel on the bed before him. He takes my hand and I step onto the floor. "You are mine now," he says, his voice light, but there is a gravity and observation.

"I've left blood."

"It's no matter. It's the mark. We are one now."

"Can we be one? I will die."

"No. Each time gives life. Each time you become more like me."

"So I am changing? Yes. I feel it already."

He nods, glances over me again. "A lamb." Slowly he dresses me.

Then I finish the sandwich. I drink the cold water, but only when he holds it to my lips. I am his now.

"Come," he says, holding the bare fingers, the dark hand, "We'll ease his mind."

"Will you stay with me?"

"Sometimes…yes." He opens his coat and I step inside. He holds me there, under his wing. I hear the sirens roaring, screaming. An argument somewhere in the hall. And people dying, silently ceasing. But I am never more secure.


	4. Chapter 4

Penitent 4

The central church doors are locked. It's grown dark. Father knows what it means to lock me out. I'm being punished.

"Come on," I tell my dark lover. I pull him to an arched thick door, lower than the street. A vagrant sleeps there, against the wall, a misformed man who wears a large beret. I've seen him so many times, rosary tying his hands together, lips moving in silent conversation. Dark glasses hiding eyes…sunken, blind. I am so sad for him. Does he guard this door or sleep here, lie in wait, or is he dead?

"He sleeps," my angel whispers, and we step over him and reach the door, knock and I hear the useless hollow call. Father does not respond, though I press against the brittle wood, and say, "Father Charles, Father Charles."

I don't want him to find me, or come but guilt is thick in me, like the ash, like the burning smell.

My angel presses against my back, hovers over me, a shroud. "He's not all you have," he says.

I nod. I am so rich to have him here with me now.

He pulls me to the heaving sidewalk. He kneels at a grate in the street, which he slides open. He stands and lifts me swiftly, then lowers me through. He jumps down beside me, then climbs up holding to metal rungs that jut from the side of the tunnel. He pulls the grate back in place.

He leads me through a dark passage, a set of stairs, rodents squeal as my protector kicks at them. He uses his shoulder to hammer loose a solid door. When it opens I smell the rectory. We are at the back of the storeroom, off of the kitchen. He pulls me inside and shoves the door in place, moves boxes to fortify the passage. He takes me by the arm and pulls me across the kitchen.

At the doorway he looks both ways, his jaw lean and hard, eyes darting into the shadows and he listens. "There's no one here," he tells me, and yet we walk softly through the foyer, trespassers. We are soon exiting by the front door. Hurry beneath a short underpass to the church. We enter Father's private door to the vestment room. I have not been here to hang them and so they lay on a chair. The green ones. On hangars are blue, red and yellow. I like the blue ones best.

Through the corridor to the church, to the far door that leads to the basement. Down the stairs, to the winding hallway where St. Francis of Assisi has no hands, where plaster bones and plaster dust roll beneath our feet.

I cough from the powdered air. "It's been stirred recently."

He nods, but his eyes are bright as we stand at the door to my room. He pets over my hair. "Do you love me?"

"You know I do," I say, but I am cut off by the ringing voice of Father Charles.

"Where have you been?" Behind the priest is a stool, the empty bottle on the floor. He's been waiting here.

I'm confused. "You locked me out."

"Love," he sneers.

I look at my angel. Did he know? Did he ask me so Father would hear?

"You bring this here," Father seethes, face red, thick veins in the forehead, teeth clenched and wine-stained lips.

"Don't…." I raise my hand.

"What are you doing, Isabella? What have you done? You weren't supposed to leave. He's taken you. I can see it. You've taken him into your body." Father looks around at the brokenness in the hall. He picks up a twisted candlestick and growls as he raises it overhead. I seek to move in front of my beloved, but he holds me behind him. He does not try to protect himself, I do not feel him flinch.

"I'm Edward," he says. He is not Gabriel or Michael. He is Edward.

"You can see him," I encourage Father, hoping he'll lower the weapon.

"And smell him. His kind. The sulphur. Can't you?" I have never heard him be so rude.

Then to Edward: "Get out. I know what you are…."

"Edward." I can't say that enough, this revelation. "Edward."

"You know nothing of what I've suffered…the struggle. But I tell you this. She's mine," Edward speaks, letting the coat cover me by half.

Father takes a step forward then, a wide step, before his open mouth stays frozen and his foot turns oddly. The candlestick crashes to the floor. He goes to his knees and grips his chest. He falls on his face.

I rush around Edward and fall on my knees by Father Charles. I am calling to him. For a moment he does not move. "Please, please," I pray.

Then slowly Father raises his head. He's dazed. He looks at me, past me. He's afraid.

Edward kneels beside me, at Father's other side and carefully rolls him onto his back. Then he removes the tattered half glove. He places this bare hand over Father's heart. His hands are long and elegant. I know how he has used them on my flesh. The place where the glove was is clean. But his fingers bear the grime that plagues us all.

The priest flinches, but he cannot move to defend, so he tucks his chin and looks at the hand with wide eyes, and roughly breathes as if we've place a snake upon him, a snake who's sucking his blood.

We are like this for long minutes. I have ceased asking Edward if Father will recover. He does not see me, does not answer, but his eyes stay riveted on his hand spread flat against Father's pumping chest.

And finally, Father rests his head. His breathing eases. He blinks at the ceiling. A few more minutes and he speaks, "Help me up."

I try to, but it's Edward who lifts him to his feet and waits until he's steady enough to walk on his own. He steps very slowly, but stable it seems. He covets the wall, keeping his hand there as he turns and speaks to me, "You've brought this upon us."

"That is a burden to put on one so pure," Edward says. "She is the last one to blame. In all of this world she is the last."

"Shut your lying tongue. You think you're the first of your kind to show here? You think I haven't dealt with others? You are the first to try penance. Do you really think that could be enough? You tell me you suffer." He spat on the floor.

"I have no kind." Edward. "I have her."

"You are the first to defile a child." Father's shoulders thump against the wall. He is angry, but unable to seek retribution he is that weak.

"Father I am no child…" I feel heat in my face, hear it in my voice.

He ignores me, has eyes only for Edward. "You do not know your own. Rejected by the rejected. You do not know what you are. Yet you prey on this girl…my daughter." There is fierce hatred in his tone.

"She has chosen me. She didn't want the others. She didn't see them." Edward.

I don't know what others.

"You came into this place of sanctuary…." Father.

"She came to me." A step closer to Father. "She came to me."

"You," Father says, his voice reedy, but strong enough to echo in the dark hall, "fell down…and they came up. And you think there's a difference. You think there's a difference."

Then he leaves us there, and we watch, until I hear him shuffle up the stairs and overhead. He moves like one defeated.

"I must keep vigil with him," I tell Edward, who stands staring in Father's wake, his arms at his sides.

"He'll be alright."

I look at him. I know Father misunderstands. Edward wouldn't lie.

"It's not indifference," he assures me, "but foretelling. There is a weakness in his heart. But he'll live beyond this time."

"You healed him."

"I mastered him."

"Is that what you did to me?"

He smiles, but like all of his looks it is grounded in sorrow. "As I told the priest, it was the other way."

"I came to you?"

"Did you not?" He pulls close to me, dirty, healing finger brushes against my check. Then he steps around me and goes beyond, opening the door to my room, holding it wide for me.

I enter then, he is behind. We close the door, close out the world.

Inside, he lays a fire, sparks it to a roar and making sharp angry shadows on the wall, we undress. There is no question that we will lay together. I have so many questions, but none so great that they can't wait until after.

When we are naked, we regard one another. I have never seen a man before, was not sure how one looked, the member half erect, the sack attached, legs strong like a marble warrior's. I was excited by his openness, his willingness to let me look my fill as he looked his, though he had told me in his room he could not look at me long enough, but would ache to see me before him always, only wearing my glorious flesh.

He'd brought food from the storeroom, crackers and potted meat. He fixed that for me now. He ate only one, and he flinched while he chewed and swallowed. I said, "You must take more." But he would not. He spread the meat for me.

And so I sat before the fire, light on my skin, modesty gone, and ate such a delicious meal. The fact that he'd made it with me in mind softened the thievery. When I sucked on each of my fingers I heard him laugh.

"I have holy water." He'd taken that from the storeroom as well, water in bottles Father had blessed in the hopes that the impurities were taken away.

"I will wash you with it." That is his intention, he says, knowing I will protest, he tells me not to say a word.

So I set aside my plate. I will submit to this, though I do not approve.

He takes a white cloth and beginning with my face, he brings its clean warmth to my features, stroking over my brow, my nose and lips, such bliss.

He rubs my neck, and then takes first one hand and small hard circles front and back, between my fingers, then up my arm, the other as well. I am softening, softening as he worships me with the soft wet rag.

He watches so closely, counting the beats of my heart, I think. It thrums thickly relaxed yet attuned to his every movement.

My breasts, the soap, slick over their tips, just his hand, then the rag, the hand, his lips, the rag. So warm. My lids so heavy. I lay back, fall back. Warm wet rag on the place where I am sore, where he has joined with me that morning. He holds the rag there, the warmth seeps into the core of me. Then a small vial of oil. "Blessed," he whispers, some on his fingertips, anointing me there in the place where only he is allowed, only he. He rolls me over, and cleans my back, my backside, my legs. Lastly I am seated and he kneels before me, washing my feet using basin and rag.

Then he arranges me beneath the covers, but one last look before he tucks me beneath, one last searing approval before he kisses my hip and seals me in the blanket.

"Thank you," he says.

I don't know what to say.

Then he washes himself. There is such power in him. He is slow as he stands and brings the rag over himself. He watches me as I watch him. "You're very beautiful," I say.

"This is nothing," he tells me. "I only see beauty in you. I see to the heart. There is no real beauty on the surface for me, if the heart's light isn't true. And you, my love, are lit with the most captivating light…next to the sun. I reflect that back, you see. I'm wrapped in it when I'm with you."

"Now you have it backwards."

"I'm nothing without you."

I shake my head. "Perhaps Father is right in one thing, you don't know who you are."

"I know myself only to well." He throws the rag beside the basin. I smell the harsh soap on him, that makes his skin glow ruddy.

"Edward," I say softly, and he comes to me. He slips under the blanket beside me and wraps his long lean arms around me.

I put my hand on his face. "Should we marry?"

He kisses me, and I am weak from it. Shaken from it. "Too much," he whispers.

"I'm sorry," I'm embarrassed. Was the question too much or the kiss?

He pulls me as close as it is possible to be without crawling into one another's hearts. "Marriage is a way for you to understand what's happened between us. If that is what you need, I will do whatever you say. But know this, my love, what we have is more profound than your idea of marriage. We are sealed, now, joined in our spirits as well as our souls. Our love has changed the course of the whole world. Even our vows would not be more binding than that. You were made for me. And everything I've known and suffered, everything is nothing without you. It was all so I could get to you. I was waiting. I was aching. And I came.

"You, Isabella, are my very beating heart. It took it's first beat because of you. You see? Profound."


	5. Chapter 5

Penitent Five:

Upon awakening I know two things. He is with me still, a great, warm presence caging me with his arm, his hair wild around his glorious sorrowful features. He is angelic in sleep, just beauty to be studied, to marvel at. He's suffered. Yes, I see it, feel it. We've all suffered. It's the way it cracks one's soul that makes us unique.

And then, he has taken me again during the night, as if in bringing me to frenzy and release, he lifts me to the world he hails from.

I am tender in my throbbing center, sticky with his body's seed, sated with his adoration. I shiver with lascivious memories of his utter abandonment of himself as he loves me. He consumes me. I want him again. I don't think I can think about anything else like cleaning the pews, or hanging the vestments, or polishing the candle jars. What is my life now? But I know. It's him.

He is right, his love-making is changing me. Before him—I'm a pale shadow, my steps barely heard, voice fragile, words few and empty. Waiting to die, so unable to live.

It's a heavy responsibility. Living. It could get me in trouble if I were to believe I am, somehow worthy of his intensity.

Yet he is proud that I came to him. Only he and Father Charles can imagine what it meant, to disobey, to risk everything without hesitation on the chance, the very chance I could know him.

Thinking of last night's union, him moving over me, over my flesh, such beauty in his face and body, such strength yielded to me, he gives me himself, his groaning, his care, he takes but he serves. And I come back together, more a part of him than before.

Am I the same as the pale, shivering girl who'd never felt connected to anything other than Father's fine words? Am I the same as that girl, who trembled, who moved like an apparition through these tall ceilings through these echoing halls? I was a suggestion of myself, just that. But now…more.

In the morning, he is gone. I do not panic now. I must trust he will return. I have work, but what will Father say to me and what will he allow? My life is disintegrating, but I have no new existence to fill. And so I dress in my drab wool, covering a body I have just become aware of, a body that protests a bit as if to prove I am new.

Outside the door sits the blind man. Much as I'd seen him with Edward in the stair well near the outer door. How has he gained entry to this place? No one comes here, not even Father Charles before the previous night. I don't know what to do, to run back in my room and lock the door, or to take a stand and confront him.

"I'm a friend," he says, though his appearance belies that he's awake. I have never heard him speak with elegant inflection. I've only heard him mutter the conversation with himself.

"Who's friend?" I ask. Surely not mine.

He pulls off the beret then, and I see his hair is blond and tangled. "Your friend." He seems to look at me, but the dark glasses in a dark place have me confused.

"Did you follow us here last night? Did you come through the storeroom?" I know he couldn't have, but how is he here?

"I knew my way. I often come. Here is where I sit most nights." He is so calm, as though incapable of being insulted.

"I've never seen you."

"You don't look in corners, and when you do, you have yourself convinced there's nothing there." I want to feel alarm that he speaks to me so, but there's no accompanying attitude that I can identify. Yet, he should not be here.

"What do you want?"

"What every beauty queen desires…world peace." He smiles, patient. I suspect he's just made a joke, but I cannot laugh standing as I am in a place that will swallow my screams before they're past my lips.

"If you go in and lock the door, it's nothing to me. I have frightened you before, though you denied it," he says.

"Only when I haven't seen you praying near the confessional."

"What if I am not praying? What if I am speaking to you and you have refused me an audience?"

I have no answer. When did he speak to me? It's always the muttering. He's a bit mad, for sure. So why does he take refuge here?

"We shall go to the priest. He'll straighten this out," I say, walking past. At once he is next to me, how he gets near so quickly I can't guess, but it's wrong, of course. He is gripping my ankle. I know he can snap it. I just know.

"I shall scream," I say.

"No need, though scream if you must. I'll wait."

I shake my head. "Why are you here?"

"It's for him. It's for you. I'm taking you with me." His grip tightens.

I want to kick. Surely Edward will be back. Perhaps he has only gone for more food. That might mean he's in the church. He'll come. He'll save me.

"He will follow." And that's the last thing he says before rising to stand behind me, and I already sense he hasn't unfolded from the floor in the usual way. One minute he sits in his bent posture, the next he stands tall and strong at my back, one hand around my middle, the other across my chest.

"You will go with me now."

And I am oddly calm.

"You will walk at my side."

I don't want to, but I know I won't fight him.

"You will not speak. You will not protest. You will only observe. You will learn."

He takes my chin and turns my head so I can peer up at him.

He's young. He's dirty, but he's handsome, blue eyes that hold more intelligence than I am comfortable with, a well-formed face, strong chinned, well shaped lips. He's not as striking as Edward, but he is more beautiful than any man I've seen in the walls or bowels of this place.

I nod my obeisance. He is clearly in command. I fear if I don't comply I will die. I fear he will try to hurt Edward. But even so, I can't panic.

He takes my hand then, and I walk beside him. He wears a dirty camel-colored trench. It shuffles against his pant legs as he walks. I follow him from the familiar walls of the church, outside to the street. The soot pelts our clothes, sounding like rain. He pulls a shawl from inside of the coat. It is an altar cloth he has taken. I know how it is mended on the left corner. I wrap myself in it and hold a corner over my mouth through which to breathe. He walks quickly, but I can just keep up.

We go in the opposite direction from where Edward lives. There are shops, many of which house vagrants. I try not to look in the eyes of those we pass. They part for him, they press closer for me, as if they resent the freedom I have to walk in this man's wake. I know I should try to signal for help, but I know such a thing is unheard of. I am outside. I am fair game. We push through where people stand thick, coats and scarves, looking and looking. Shoes and the grit, the sound. The coughing, the wet wheezing sound.

Soon I am watching our feet, my shoes, his leather boots, just our feet, his sure, mine stumbling. Until he stops. We are there, I think, an old marquee, a theatre. I feel nervous now, a sense of dread let out from its cage, so strong I nearly scream, then I do scream when a metal door opens suddenly, and a tall, fierce looking blond woman motions us inside.

"You brought her here?" She screams, too.

The blonde man doesn't flinch. "Fishing," he says, removing his coat, his scarf, pulling the beret from his pocket and flinging that on a nearby table.

"And when he comes…crazed…he's been here what…two days! He's overwhelmed now. She's all he'll care about." She sniffs, "They've mated. Can you take that on? Not me. Don't think I will." She is raving. She is beautiful.

"Be still." And just like that she runs her hands over her thick yellow hair, and leaves the room.

He goes to a burner there, and fills a cup, brings it to me. He motions me to sit at the table, which I do because I'm so weary. "For you," he says. "I won't hurt you. She won't hurt you."

"You're going to be in trouble," I say. "If you let me go…"

"You'll die on the street," he finishes for me. His eyes are the most penetrating blue.

"You have to give me some answers." Though I realize he doesn't have to do anything.

"Yes. No."

I bang on the table and the soup sloshes onto the back of my hand, burning the skin.

"See there," he scolds, wiping the soup away with his scarf, and putting his hand against my flesh. He does not speak, but looks at his hand. I am at once soothed. When he pulls his fingers away, I am better.

"You're like him," I say, and of course, I've known. He was right, I pretend to not see.

He stares at me and smiles. "Thank you for the compliment, Miss. But of course, there is only one of him."

"Of course," I say. "What will you do when he comes?"

He is silent for so long, staring at the table. Then he says, "He'll be ready to save you. That will consume him. And I shall try to survive."


	6. Chapter 6

Penitent 6

They, the blonde man and the blonde woman, made me as comfortable as they probably could in such a large, drafty, decaying building. It had once been grand—a star-studded, gilded night out for the working class. They'd shown double features, and a pump organ had risen from the floor during intermission, a gold-piped behemoth. And over its gleaming keys had danced the fingers of a local celebrity playing Broadway tunes. Now the instrument sat, only its top-half visible in the opening, dust-choked and broken. Extinct.

You could hear it, ghost-music, if you were still, and we were, still and listening.

The woman, Rosalie, moved constantly, first in one of three balconies that flanked the large, blank movie screen at a second-story level, then in another, waiting for Edward's arrival. The man, Jasper, stood before the expansive movie-screen, beneath its one giant curling tear resembling a massive angel's wing. Jasper stood still as a statue. He guarded. She watched. He guarded. That's what I knew. She would be the first line of defense, then there would be him.

I sat in one of the many rows of tattered seats, just as I sat every morning and evening in the wooden pews at church. I knew I could clean this place, but it wouldn't change anything. I was held here, even if they didn't chain me or seem to restrain me. The man Jasper wore his dark glasses, and the beret, but I felt his eyes locking me to this chair.

A booming voice then. Not Edward. Another. The woman is relieved, even I can see it, though she doesn't call out as if he's a friend. She rebukes him instead. "What has captivated you for three days?"

He waves to her, and for all of the imposing vision his size denotes, it's a sharp contrast to the smile he gives her, part sheepish, part amused, asking forgiveness, yet not as convicted as she'd like him to be, that he'd really done anything wrong.

"I take it he's not here," he said, surprising me as he leapt to the top of a seat, running light-footed over several rows, reaching the wall where Rosalie stood overhead on the railing of one of the box-seats. He scaled the wall easily, leaving plaster dust behind where his big feet had taken hold, and swinging himself onto the balcony to lift Rose into his arms.

But she wouldn't receive him. She struggled against him, insisting he let her go. "He's coming," she declared.

The big one loosened her then, moving just as quickly back to the center isle, leaping into a crouch, facing the center doors he'd entered through moments before.

The double doors flattened with a bang. There was dust, but not so thick that the slight girl standing there wasn't visible. The big man straightened, hands hanging at his sides as he faced her. "What's with all the drama?" he says.

She walked toward him, her tiny shoulders very straight, her short black hair as smooth against her little round head as brush strokes on a melon.

Her glasses were dark, cat-eyes, red-framed. Her lips were red. Her nails were red. Her shoes were sparkling red, like Dorothy's in that story long ago.

She wore form-fitting black clothes. She stepped to the big one. "I've seen him," she said.

The man stepped back like a door swung open. Jasper had also straightened in the little one's presence, and she marched up to the stage now, looked up and addressed him. "You have to be gone. He won't hear you. He's crazed. You'll have to destroy him to stop him. And if you do…destroy him…then everything is lost." Her voice had been feminine, but strong.

Jasper nodded once, and the flurry began. Before her words had settled in the room, I was being lifted. It was the big man, holding me like I was a child. They were running then, out a side-door the way Edward and I had sought the night before, side-doors, grates in the street, tunnels under buildings, life in every layer. And fear.

We run until dark night. We have taken the train, but we have ridden it on its roof, and even with their protection, I cannot feel my face. The little one warms my cheeks with her small hands. But still, it's only moments before they are cold again. The clacking of wheels, the grinding of gears, the cruel death of vagrants along the tracks as they wail and wave and are mowed down and we do not slow, we do not care it seems.

"They never learn," Rosalie.

The small one, Alice, puts her hand on my arm and smiles at me. "I live in the mountains. You'll rest there."

"I don't know that place," I say, already overwhelmed by the eerie scenery speeding past, bonfires and gangs of people clashing, others lined along the tracks and throwing, shouting things as it passes, buildings ripped into rubble, someone being chased and towns and towns standing like silent shells.

"You will," says she. "You'll see."

"I want Edward."

They all seem to hiss at once.

"We can't outrun him," Rosalie again. "Her wanting…."

"Bella," Alice says, "we know you love Edward. But you have to try to let him go…just for a while. You have to try and stop calling to him."

"Can't you stop her?" Rosalie to Jasper.

"What do you think I've been doing? Do you know how much of it I've absorbed? It's all I can do to dismantle it lest I start to pine for him myself!" Jasper.

The big one, Emmett, snickers then, and Rosalie thumps him on the head.

Alice looks at me and smiles, the wind whipping her perfect hair into a black cloud around her lovely features. "I know it's a constant pull, a deep ache. But you have to oppose it. Say to yourself, I don't want Edward."

I am looking at her. I am cold, jostled, scared and miserable. "I…want Edward. You can't make me say anything else. It's too much of a lie."

"What if it would protect him?" Alice.

"You've taken me. I trust him, not you. Not any of you."

"You don't know anything," Rosalie. "Silly, stupid…"

"C'mon, Babe," Emmett.

They draw close around me, in a circle, a close tight circle. They are trying to protect me from the elements, pulling their coats into a type of tent. They seem strong and mostly unaffected, as if they are mercenaries, unruffled by what they must experience to achieve their goal. They are the reason I am here. Their goal seems to be to hurt Edward.

"I won't help you hurt him," I say, having more freedom to be in touch with my feelings up here.

There is a big jostle then, the train grinds to a halt.

"C'mon," Jasper says. "A mob."

We are moving on foot. The mob rushes past us. One straggler holding a club, his cheeks painted with black soot, stops and stares.

"Move on," Emmett says low and stern, and the fellow does.

I want to be afraid, but it is becoming hard again to act on what I know I feel. I am trying to survive, even as Emmett throws me onto his back, even as they run up a mountain, never slowing to breathe or drink, just running, rhythmic and focused, their oneness evident and strange, their cadence as mind numbing as the cold.

I try not to sleep, but at some point I shut down. I awaken with a start, voices calling to one another in the trees overhead. I am disoriented, but quickly remember. I am riding on Rosalie's back now. Emmett has taken off into a tree, quickly rising up the trunk, into the branches. He climbs, and that is real, but the speed, that is perverse. I am revolted by the powerful image, as much as it captures me and renders me speechless. He moves boldly to the black figure I can just make out in the sun's weak rising light, a light that doesn't welcome the day but pronounces judgment on it.

The black figure moves back, back on the tip of a stout limb that cannot hold its weight. Emmet has climbed above the crouching figure. He bends toward it. "Boo," he says, and there is a sharp crack, the limb gives way, arrows down, and from the ground they wait for the crash, the thud and split of the figure that is man or beast or both. The three who hold me do not move, they wait until Emmett jumps from the lowest branch, which isn't low enough, and yet he jumps, unaffected by the resounding thud of his feet hitting the earth hard enough to shatter bone. He goes to the dark pile of remains and spits upon it, wipes his mouth and leads on. There is rustling far above from where the others move and call to one another, but they do not bother us, they move away.

And so we rush through trees. I am sick with the endless jostling. Jasper has taken me, and he holds me like a child, in front, and my limbs ache with the change of position.

There is a low hum, a song perhaps, it comes from him.

It's green here, in patches. Pale, sickly green that is beautiful. Not as beautiful as Edward's eyes, but still, it stirs the distant ache in me.

"Belllla," Jasper whispers because I know he feels the longing that the color green stirs.

"Try, Bella," Alice calls.

"I can't," I whisper. And besides, I won't.


	7. Chapter 7

Penitent 7

The five of us are on the move. The mountain terrain breaks into a plateau. They call it a valley, as the mountain continues to rise beyond this flat place. There is a road, though my captors avoid it. There is a stream that turns most often to a rushing white foaming river. Sometimes it breaks into waterfalls that drop over sheer cliff face until the water regroups on a lesser incline and continues its rush down the jagged rocks in force. I know how precious this good water might be, and wonder where it finally ends.

My captors scale every surface with equal grace. They don't seem limited by degree of difficulty. There are no repelling ropes, no brackets and clips, just them, their hands and feet all the tools they seem to need.

Now we've reached this valley. We push into its flatness, though it's not completely level as I'd thought at first, rather it is rocky and craggy, and filled with woods and cold debris breaking into fields now and then.

In one of the fields sits a house, enormous, more like a cabin hotel than a single residence. Yet it is a residence, or was at one time. It belongs to Alice.

We gather on the porch. Alice reaches over the doorframe and procures a key and I want to laugh at her use of it. How is it that they can be so beyond convention, then use something as innocuous as a key to unlock a door. More ridiculous, they wipe their feet before they enter.

The building is all open inside, glass walls along the back, ceilings two-stories high, all wood. One magnificent piece of red and yellow modern art over a rugged stone fireplace the five of us could stand in.

They point me to the facilities. I close the door. I am alone. I fall to the floor, the soft glossy wood. A cry comes out, silent it's so deep. Hands splayed, shoulders and head collapsing. My hair matted and limp hanging around me, touching my lap.

I'm being lifted. There is no privacy. "Get the bath," Alice tells Rose who runs the water. The cry has stopped, goes neither back down nor comes up, but stays around my heart and I can't breathe.

They remove my clothes, and I am submerged in warm scented water. They are speaking, but I don't hear. The water pushes on my chest. I open my mouth, I'm gasping.

"Shhhhhh," Alice, washing me, her hand on my back, and though she does not bring me comfort, my lungs obey her touch and open, and air fills them, and I sigh, over and over.

Rose shakes out my clothes in distaste as though they're filth. She infuriates me with her running commentary. "Why would he mate with her?" is her central question.

When I've been washed, they lift me. I stand, they rub towels over me. I am too tired to feel the humiliation inside. But shame is there. Not for belonging to Edward in heart and body, but because they find me so lacking and repulsive. Don't they think I know I'm not worthy of him? And yet, when I'd been with him, love had been enough.

I am bait. So they can destroy him if he finds us. I would hate them if he'd let me, Jasper, the one who controls me in some horrible way, reaching inside of me, altering my emotions, as dishonorable a practice as drugging me. It is violation, and it won't stop.

They dress me. Undergarments not made from gauze, but silky. Over these pants made of durable fabric, a blouse, blue, the finest I've known. Boots. A sweater. Green, my favorite color though I will only like it because of him. They button the sweater.

"She is lovely," Alice says.

"I don't see it," Rose.

"You know it's more than the eye…you know it's deeper."

I look at Alice then. She is correct. But how can she know…the connection between us…she can't understand. It can't be broken. That's the thing.

They want to hide me here. How will he live without me? I have become, perhaps, essential to him, and I do not say this with arrogance. It is just so. He has described something to me stronger than marriage, a bond so pure and fundamental, I can't comprehend, yet I know.

There is a sound. An excited pealing scream. It alarms them.

I am rushed to the big room. Rose sets me on the sofa. Outside, in the empty trees the black creatures move, giant birds, or apes, or both, I can't tell, there are too many, they are repugnant.

"What are they?" I say, standing.

"She sees them," Rose.

"Take her back," Alice directs, and Rose moves to take me from the arena. I am afraid, but not willing to not know.

"I want to see them!" I insist, and even Jasper's rush to quiet me can't take away the desire to see. If they are going to come for me, I don't want them bursting through a bedroom door to drag me out. I'd rather see them crashing through the tall, wide glass. I'd rather die with the air in my face, screaming Edward's name.

Rose allows me to stay. So we stand, and we watch. They move through the tree, wings, but arms and hands too. They move and they chatter with a piercing, unnerving sound to one another, to us. We watch their show, and we don't move. Not even when they settle on the naked branches, crouching, gathering.

I am filled with fear. I watch my captors, frozen, still, watching the winged army.

"What are they?" I ask again.

Jasper looks at me then. "The fallen," he whispers.

And though he whispers, the fallen respond. They clatter in the trees. Branches break as they take whole limbs and beat them against the brittle wood. It is a hollow drum sound underlying their rage. Wood splinters, trees are broken down to pointed stubs.

I clutch my chest when one of them drops in front of the window, as though he'd been on the roof. He is better formed than the rest. Ape and bird. Hair and wings. Arms and hands. Feet and talons. Not like any ape I've see in pictures. Too much knowledge in the eyes. Large and determined. Bent and cruel. Strong and ancient. Beast and…perversion.

"Caius," Rose whispers.

Caius shows his teeth then, his angry yellow teeth, gnashing. His large leathery black hands slap on the grass and stick there as he looks in, at Rose, at each of us, lastly at me. He looks long and deep, and I can't breathe but I can't look away. His eyes are sink-holes of murderous hatred, but he is curious, too. His coarse lips are parted in a sneer, but he seems insulted that I behold him at all. And the fear in me breaks through whatever held it, and I am gasping and ready to fall.

"Make him go away," I beg, but I'm unable to break from the black stare.

Emmett growls loudly, stepping to the glass. Caius staggers back, and falls. But with a quick move of one of his heavy arms he springs to his feet, mouth open wide, gums and tongue black, he gives a call the other feral creatures take up. I cover my ears, pulling for air, wailing from deep in my throat. They continue to send out a high-pitched ripping sound that grows into a dark growling harmony.

Jasper and the others have moved shoulder to shoulder in front of the window, in front of me, their hands spread on the glass.

Slowly Caius grows quiet, barely audible now, his hands hanging at his sides. His shoulders slumping as he stares at the four. Behind him the others grow quiet. But two or more slowly drop to the ground to stand at various places in the treeline.

They thud there, one here, one there. They stand ready.

Another sound, a rushing of wind. The creatures look up, then around, arms swinging loosely as they turn each way.

A rush of black moves across the windows and slams into Caius. The beast screeches, and the others drop from above and flock to him.

The singular attacker rams again and again into Caius, knocking him back, knocking him down as they roll and rush into the yard's center, only distinguishable from one another because of the attacker's reddish hair.

Incensed, the troops rush to the fight and throw themselves onto Caius and his attacker. Immediately the two are covered with the grotesque bodies. It is soon a huge pile of beings. Wings move and pump, torn wings, sometimes no fabric at all, just the stems of wings pumping, moving, as if feeding, as if gleeful.

And I scream, "Edward!"

The glass that separates us from the carnage shatters like drops of rain, falling all at once with a deafening crash. The apes move in surprise as Jasper rushes forward flanked by Emmett, Rose and Alice. There is a thick flurry of beasts lifting, screeching, attacking and rolling, streaks of movement, tearing of flesh, a sulphuric smell, unworldly horrible sounds of rage and agony.

Finally I can see Edward, on the ground, not moving. I hurry then, through the melee, knocked down, back on my feet running, reaching, calling, "Edward."

Talons overhead. Emmett grabbing onto them, just before they spear me and carry me away. I run and crouch, Alice before me, her arms moving like weapons, windmilling. "Edward," I call, Caius kneeling before him, one hand on Edward's throat, the other thick arm raised to strike him. Then Jasper, feet first crashing into Caius and they roll.

I drop on my knees at Edward's side. "Oh my dear, my dear," I put my hands over the torn fabric of his shirt, his heart. I know I have no power to stir him to life, no power, but I stare at my hands, and I beg, "Edward, don't go back, don't leave. You must stay, you must be with me, don't leave."

And all around me the battle goes dim. I can't see it anymore, I can't hear it. My battle is here. He had told me I was his very beating heart. It took its first beat because of me. And I was still here, still beating. "Edward," I said, growing calm even as I sensed myself on the cusp of a wild despair, "get up. It's time to get up."

Nothing. Just his beautiful bitten, clawed face, that comforted me even as its condition terrified me. "Edward," I bent closer, pressed my lips to his, held them there, their cold softness, their stillness. And yet, fragile as our future seemed in that moment, I felt the first stirring of breath gracing this dead kiss, the first flutterings of hope beneath my hands.

I gasped. When I lifted, his eyes were opened, other worldly, confused for a moment. Then his sunken gaze settled on me. His lips moved, "It's…"

I took his hand and held it over my heart. "It's me. It's Bella. You're alive."

Emmett lifts him. I become aware of my surroundings. Alice pulls me to my feet. There is no death, just crawling away, so many of the creatures sprawled about, limping off into the trees.

We walk through the broken glass into the house. Edward is laid on the couch, but he sits upright. He is still disoriented, unsure. "Bella," he yells, as if that one fact has penetrated.

I push around Emmett. "I'm here. My love." I throw myself against him and his arms come around me. He has buried his face in my neck. A great tremor moves through him. Again. And once more.

He's on his feet quickly. One of his arms holds me but he isn't looking at me, only possessing me.

Jasper stands before him, his hands lifted. "Let us heal you."

Edward's grip on me tightens. Jasper does not draw closer, but waits. Edward growls low in his throat. He draws me closer still, holding me on his hip as if I am a child.

"They drew from you. You're infected." Jasper.

Emmett steps forward to block him. "Edward, brother…" with a sweep of his arm Edward throws Emmett across the room into the red and yellow painting. Emmett and the painting crash to the floor. He slowly rises and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, but he does not draw near.

Jasper, "Let us heal you. You'll remember how it was. We stood together. We sang the songs. Remember." Edward strikes Jasper in the face. Jasper crashes into one of the remaining panels of glass and it breaks into thousands of pieces, raining onto his dazed form.

I feel the panic now, and realize what Jasper had kept me from realizing. This is Edward without penance.

Rose tries next. She reaches, ready to put her hand on Edward's arm. Emmett isn't far behind. Edward doesn't hesitate to strike her down. He hits her with such force she breaks through the coffee table. Then he waits for Emmett.

Rose slowly rises, holding her hand signaling for Emmett to stop. She's frozen there, and Edward turns to Alice. The look on his face, his eyes completely black, his mouth open. I look at Alice in terror.

"Brother," Alice whispers. "Broootherrr," she draws out the word. "Remember the former days, how we stood, our unity…."

"No," Edward yells, flailing his arm at her, but meeting the air. She was behind us now.

"Remember how it was," she says.

"Remember," they are all saying, together in one voice all around us.

Edward yells as if in agony. He holds me close and he runs.

He holds me too tightly, but I cling to him and close my eyes. He runs in silence. I hear singing, it grows louder, it is a harmony, wordless, beautiful but eerie. I know it's them. They are running with us. When he stops, he pushes me against a tree. He is making an anxious sound with every breath. His hand runs over me. His eyes are still black. I think of Caius. "Edward," I say, trying to find him in those horrible eyes, "Edward," but he's not there. I can't find him.

The music grows louder. But he's focused on me. Looking up and down my body, so intense, there is lust, but not anything familiar. This is something more. He looks at me like I'm something to eat. That's what it is. He grabs my new sweater, the one I had loved because it matched the green of his eyes. He tears it from me and throws it aside. His movements are hateful. He looks at me then, his hand gathers the fabric of the blue blouse. With a strong tug it tears from me in his hand.

The music swells from behind him. He looks at me, runs his hand roughly over my breasts. It's too rough. Too painful. His stare is locked there, then higher, over my collar bones. He rubs over them, too hard.

When he licks his lips I gasp at the black color at the edges of his tongue. He is grinning.

He puts his hand on my throat then. I am breathing hard.

"Don't do this," I whisper, tears streaming from my eyes. This gets his attention, the tears. He touches the moisture on his blackening fingers and lifts it to his tongue. His eyes lift to mine then. A flicker of himself? I can't tell. It's too soon gone. His hand moves from my neck to my jaw.

He steps close to me, breathing against my face. He grazes my lips with his too dark ones. There is a bitter taste. "No," I whisper. "Edward, Edward."

He kisses me, but it is rough and I'm ashamed. When he pulls back to stare at my lips, I reach up and wipe my mouth. His hand is squeezing my face. He growls and shakes me thumping my head against the trunk, a stabbing pain.

I'm crying in force now. I don't know if this is even him. The singing is almost piercing. He closes his eyes and grits his teeth. For a time it's all there is, the frozen listening, the pressure on my face, his rough coat against my chest, his bitter breathing, his face screwed looking pained.

Finally he opens his eyes and looks at me. He eases his grip on my face and rubs over where the marks are with his shaking fingers. "B..bella. Oh…Bella. I…." He looks with horror upon my nakedness. I cross my arms. They are shaking now, too.

He steps back, staggers back. "I'm sorry. So sorry."

He is gone in a flurry of movement then, and Alice emerges from the dimness of the woods. She comes to me, covers me with her coat and picks me up in her arms.

From a distance I hear the yells, the trees breaking. The music has stopped.

"Don't hurt him. Don't hurt him," I whisper, before I pass out.


	8. Chapter 8

Penitent 8

I am dragged to the fractured house. They carry me, but I fight them, so to appease me they let me try to walk. I stumble, but the women, if that is what they are, hold me upright. They have thrown someone's coat around my shoulders. But modesty is beyond me. Something deep inside is broken. The freezing weather is the only thing keeping me alive.

I am barely aware of reaching the bathroom back in Alice's house. Alice has brought me food and in her way tries to be kind, but none of it matters. I know the men hunt Edward, and the women stay alert lest Edward make his way to me. He is the enemy now. Even Caius could not withstand him.

During the long night the only sounds intersecting the hollow wail of the wind are creatures calling to one another in eerie song. I fall into a troubled sleep. I don't even think my eyes close, but I settle into a fugue state. In that place I feel no fear or pain. I just float. My reality, though grim, holds me where my prison becomes no different from my room beneath the church. It doesn't matter what space I occupy. I only need the same tiny amount of floor. What matters is who I am with.

What matters is whether or not I am with Edward.

They had said he was infected.

"That's only one of his problems." Emmett. He and the others are around me. I feel their tension, but Jasper soon snatches it away. Even my feelings are taken.

And so when the words start amongst them, the pleading, the attempt to reason, I alone seem to understand it's futile. Somehow he reaches me, somehow they allow it, and I'm taken even as he is chained in a dark place, in the lower level, and he holds me against him, and my arms are around him.

But it is just a dream. I am awakened, and empty, and we are on the move once more. It is Alaska, they say, pure and white, untouched in the higher places. I am held, no longer able to grip. They bring me to others, like them, a sickly sweet smell. So many funerals I remember, until there were too many to bury with honor, but when I am little, the cloying smells. Some of that is here, in the women who whisper around me. He is here, he is chained. If we bring her to him, will it rouse him? It is worth a try, but what if he tears her? She is just one more. But what if she's the key, the only thing to bring him to himself? He is a man of duty. He can only serve. Without her, can he exist?

And so, the needle they've inserted to keep me alive is removed, this I know, though I do not open my eyes, and they take me, fear and trepidation in their movements, we descend stairs, like in my earlier dream, and I hear the singular sound, the despair. And when I am laid on a cold hard floor, I do not move. I do not see. Only my heartbeat, and the awareness of Edward. And in the background they sing.

The slushing sound of his movement, the finger against my cheek, the whimper. The pulling me along the floor, the rolling of me onto my side, the grip, too hard, the crushing of me against him, the fire, the animal sound, the breathing, the breathing, and the whisper from the driest throat, "Bella," the kiss from the driest lips, then the silence and the melding, and release.

He wears the coat, torn pants. His dirty, heaving chest is beneath my cheek. I do not understand the signs written on his skin, in black. I have not noticed them before. They did not exist. I know this is infection, written on him, a sentence, an identity to break him. His face is sunken, handsome still, but not desirable to anyone but me.

I cannot speak. We have lain like this for days. There is no time here, but there has been light, then dark, many times over, and still we look at one another, only look.

We are filthy. He will not let anyone near us. He knows only me. Anyone else he tries to claw, to kill, I don't know why, I don't care.

Someday, if we live, we will speak. For now we can only be here, only breathe. When they bring me food, he makes me eat it, just bites. Only three. So I chew, for him. I swallow, for him. One day he touches me, follows the line of me. After he does this again and again. One day he wants to see, and I let him. I would not deny him. So I open my clothing, and he sees, he touches. He looks and looks. One day my name again, "Bella." And the looking, the touching.

One day, "I love you."

And kissing. One day just looking and kissing. Then kissing. Always kissing. For many days. Kissing. And crying. Many days of looking, crying. Holding. Holding and kissing and "I love you."

And I eat.

One day washing. He washes me. One day new clothes.

We sit on chairs in clean clothes.

One day they bring a mattress. We lay.

One day he undresses, and holds my naked body against his warmth. He sighs. He cries. He says he loves me.

One day he kisses me and kisses me. He slips himself inside of me. I hold him until he groans. One day…and one day…and one day.

One day, "I am Edward."


	9. Chapter 9

Penitent 9

"I want to tell you," he says, searching for something in my eyes that I know he finds, even as I cannot manipulate it.

"Are you aware of how you came here?" he asks.

I shake my head no. "Not to this life."

"Nor I. I just was. One day…in an alley. Hurt. My clothing strange, and tattered. Dirty. My body aching and stabbing pain. The soles of my feet so tender, my stomach roiled if I put weight on them. So I hobbled along."

I put my hand on his arm and he takes my hand and kisses it softly, placing it on my lap. "You must hear," he says.

I nod.

"I killed my first man the first day I became aware. He watched me from the darkness. What I had…he wanted. Just my life. That's all there was. So we fought, and I was nearly overcome. I was weak. But then I struck him, and he fell…and didn't move. And others came, and I scared them off. I took the money from him. But I went to the church, and put it there. You saw me then. I…I watched you."

I nod.

"I kept the card…with the name…Edward. It has always been my name. So I went to where he lived, and it was mine. I took you there."

"Yes."

"You are my purpose."

"Yes."

"They would take you away."

I shook my head now. "I don't know."

"Before you…their songs. I have changed."

"They say there's no one like you. They say you're infected. They can heal you."

"No. I am this. That's all I know. I remember how I tried to hurt you at the tree…but that was not my intention."

"You have writing on your skin." I pull the shirt away and trace over the words, if that is what they are. 

"Old things," he says.

"They want you. They all want you."

"Do you…want me?" His eyes so green and desperate, his lips trembling, his cheeks sunken in, his jaw sharp.

"Always," I whisper my hand moving over his face. "Always."

"I don't know about myself. But one thing. I am yours." He pulls me close, his arms around me, the black words around me.

"I don't fear for myself, or even the world. Not anymore. But I fear for you, my love. I fear for what you do not know, for who you really are," I say, even as his hands move over ever part of me as though he forms me.

"Don't." He is intense. He is certain.

Even as they come.


	10. Chapter 10

Penitent 10

It is a trial, of sorts. There are more of them. The Denali's live here, three sisters, Irina, Tanya, Althea, each fair, each cold. With them are various men…mates, I cannot tell. There is also the original group, Jasper with Alice. Emmett with Rose. There are others, but they stand back. They are silent.

"Destroy him," Tanya says. Is she bored? She lies. Her indifference as she looks at her perfect nails I nearly believe before she darts a look, first him, then me. She loves him. She hates him. He is chained, naked, to a metal chair under a blinding light. His appearance is formidable. He is thin, but muscular, each sinew on display beneath his flesh. Black words written all over him. When he strains, the words move. He does not sit still, but is agitated and angry. If I did not love him, I would fear him.

They join hands around him. He growls and strains. I stand before him, out of reach, in a white gown, my hair tied back. My hands are clasped behind and bound. I have been instructed not to move, and so I don't.

Around the inner circle of the sisters and their men, and Jasper's family, is the outer circle, the silent others. They sing, and Edward curses at them.

I know his venom is not directed at me. His fury is because they have me, and he is not free. His voice is now his only weapon against this madness.

"Read him," Tanya says after a while.

Alice steps forward and they close the circle. Inside of it are three of us now. Edward, myself, and this waif who is stronger than any man. She steps closer to him. The singing grows louder. My emotions cannot rise, and I know Jasper controls me.

I know Jasper is controlling Edward, with Alice so near. And nearer. Edward doesn't move now, but the veins in his neck bulge, and his eyes are squeezed shut and he growls and hangs his head. His hair is a crown of fire. He doesn't want her touch. But her small hand reaches, and touches lightly the first line of words running at an angle over his chest. As she touches the words, they are carved into his chest, and blood pours from them. I want to scream, but Jasper is holding my reaction.

Alice says these words in a tongue I do not know, and the singing becomes disjointed for the first time. Some stop singing altogether. One gasps and cries. But the inner circle does not lose focus.

"Tell me," I say.

Alice turns to me then. Her eyes big and round. "Are you worthy?"

I shake my head. Edward groans and strains. He is incensed that she would ask. Sweat pours from him, making him glisten in the light.

"If loving Edward makes me worthy, then that's my only claim. Tell me," desperate to know Edward's fate.

She looks to the inner circle and each nods, even Tanya, though she is the last.

"They have written with an ancient hand: He is an old enemy. The most hated. He has sung the songs as we bleed in defeat."

Alice turns to Edward and continues to trace the lines of words all along his body. Her touch leaves him in agony, and the blood smears. She does not stop or flinch, or even clean her hand. She reads in English now.

"His journey was long. Fierce. He is the one who brings the end. All who see him…must give themselves to end him. Tear off his head, rip his flesh, burn his heart. But first, kill his mate before his eyes. We shall be victorious."

Edward lifts his head and looks into the blinding light above him, he opens his mouth and even Jasper's influence cannot stifle the unholy screams that sound from his throat. They are of such force that a great swirling chaos overtakes the room. The second circle is blown about as if in gale force wind. They run into each other, into the walls, holding their ears and bent at the waist. Several fall to the floor making themselves small.

The inner circle are shaken, but they do not break ranks. I only observe. The lack of freedom to emote is making me think and think. Yes, they all want him. As do I.

"Edward," I say. "I know who I am."

Through his own screaming he hears me. He quiets, and the silence hurts our ears. He drops his chin and levels a look at me of such intensity I feel its weight. There is a new presence in his eyes. I can barely hold such a gaze.

"Who are you?" he says in a voice strong and strained.

"I am the one they would kill before your eyes. If you let that happen, they are truth-tellers."

"I will never allow this to happen."

"Then they are liars."

The tension ebbs out of his shoulders then. He pulls and snaps first one chain, then the other. Alice jumps back. The circle tightens and they growl. "Come to me," Jasper whispers to the waif, but she does not move, she is frozen.

Edward kicks the chains from his bare feet and slowly stands. He is muscle and height, beauty and horror, sweat, grime and blood. He speaks a word I do not know to Jasper, and Jasper lets go of the hands he'd held and falls to his knees. The others stare at him, then look amongst themselves.

I am free then, to go to him. I do not go with trepidation, but I go with reverence. He takes my hand, and we stand beside one another with space between.

"I know who I am," he tells them. "Their opposition has defined me. Until they lay upon me in battle, I was confused." Then he looks at me. "But her…I knew at first glance. And what I have spoken is true. She shall not be harmed. You may come to me after she is comforted. I have much to say to each of you."


	11. Chapter 11

Penitent 11

And so I bathed him. They brought him to the water, not a bath, but a hole in the ice, one they had to rebreak and rebreak, walking a circle around Edward and I as we stood close to one another. I wore a wet suit given to me by Tanya. She was the closest to my size. Emmett and Jasper smashed through the ice repeatedly with their fists, as the frigid temperature tried to capture the lapping water and turn it to stone.

I stood by my beloved and bathed over his wounds, the congealing blood black, the writing clear. I kissed the words not submerged, on his neck, his chest, his shoulders, his arms, even the backs of his hands, even as they prophesized my death. He did not shiver from the arctic temperatures of the lake, only from my lips, soft on the bloody scars as he watched me, even when I stepped behind, his head turned, the hair around his ear, his jaw strong, seeking to watch me as I worshipped him, as he healed.

They sang to him. Or about him. And the cracking of the ice. The lonely call of a bird overhead, then its shadow quickly whispering over him, until I looked up, but the sun was so bright, brighter than I'd known it, and the bird, of no distinguishable color passed over once more, and in its feet, a small branch, so green, like Edward's eyes, that green, and he caught the branch, and held it against his chest, against his heart.

The singing rose. The washing was over. I stepped beside Edward. Alice came into the water, stepped close, her white gown floating around her as though she stood in a cloud. She took the branch Edward offered. He put his arm around me, and grasped my hand, creating our own circle. She touched the fragrant green branch lightly to his head, then mine, then to our joined hands, all the while singing.

I looked at him. The beauty of his face, the emotion meant for me giving him a radiance…the coldness of the water kept me from forgetting he was all there was on this earth. Lips and eyes moved closer. He kissed me then, pulling back, love. He touched my lips with his battered, graceful fingers, so long and elegant, then he touched his own lips. Touched his heart, then my own. "My Bella," he whispered. "My heart."

I pressed my hand against his breast. I felt his beating life flow into me, even as I gave him my very self, and all of my words in silent surrender.

A moment later, quite shaken, we followed Alice onto the bank. Jasper and Emmett stepped from behind. Like Edward, they were naked. Some from the second circle came forward. They carried clothes. Each of us, Alice and Jasper, Emmett, Edward and me, were dressed then. The men in jeans and shirts built for the weather and for movement. Only Edward's were looser and cotton, made so his wounds could breathe and heal. We women were outfitted in soft jeans and modern shirts. We looked normal then. Human.

Edward picked me up in his arms, my newly booted feet dangling as I laughed. We followed the group through the snow, uphill to the palatial house. My arms were locked around his neck. The words of the song they all sang were barely distinguishable from the emotion the songs inspired. I could understand a single word, "One, one, one." And I felt one with him. One with them all.

We congregated in the Denali home then, and ate delicious foods prepared by the sisters. There was so much, you could eat more than once, you could refill. Food was brought to me repeatedly, by the sisters, by those from the second circle. When they brought the food, it was rarely more than a bite, but always artfully arranged and humbly given. The feeling growing inside me felt so strange, not entirely comfortable, but kind of wonderful. "You are full," Edward whispered as if easing my mind about it. He rubbed his hand over my stomach. "You are loved."

"Oh," I said, placing my hand over his. "I didn't know. It's…very nice."

He laughed a little. "My bride," he said, feeding me yet another bite from his plate.

Hours after Edward and I sat beside one another in the room brightly lit with huge windows that looked onto the white landscape. The lake where we'd been joined was healed over in thick ice. The snow around it swept by the wind into smooth drifts. The sprinkle of black ash only a light powdery gray here, sometimes not visible at all.

He had taught me to eat until I was full. He had taught me to dance some of the full feeling away. They played instruments, all familiar, and they all played so well, such unusual melodies, not pipe organs, the thing I was used to, but other instruments the world had once know. When it was innocent and could sing.

When it was full.


	12. Chapter 12

Penitent 12

The night of our joining we were left undisturbed. We sat before the fire without clothing. Him on a soft chair, me on his lap. He held me there and we stared at the flames and he spoke to me in a voice as soothing as music, and he told me things about who he was as his hands moved over me, as mine felt along the rough words marring his skin.

"I'm remembering. They are wakening me," he told me, his head resting against my own.

"Have you had others?"

He laughed then. "Women? I've had no need of others. Where I'm from…there was only love. We fought that war long ago, and drove away those who rebelled. Our life was duty. Our place was the Source. We loved the Source. We lived in that love. It's not like here…where we find the love in one another. There, we all love the Source."

"The Source?"

"Of love."

"Is that your planet?"

"It was our home. We loved her. She was our completeness. We were filled with her."

"Have you always looked as you were that first night at St. James?"

He laughed at this. "No. Where I am from, there we were beautiful. You can't be anything else in her presence."

"You are beautiful here!"

"You say this. And I see why with the level of destruction. The imperfection makes its own beauty here, its own uniqueness. The beauty here is so marred…so broken…it wrings your heart…it's so raw…it's so captivating and tragic. The dark here…I never knew such contrast. At once you see it, and you're no longer innocent, but the part of you that is, that stays pure, is never more pure against it." I looked at his marred skin. And he was right. The dark words, the ruination they promised, even they were striking, making the unmarked canvas of his flesh all the more precious.

"Is that how you see me when you tell me of my beauty, this mix of brokenness and…purity?"

He looks at me deeply. "As I've told you, I see you all the way through. There is so much beauty there. You are immaculate to me. I sought you. First. "

"And why?"

"I had to have love. It's the one thing my kind can't live without. I came alone. To seek you."

"Are you from heaven?"

He laughed then. "No. You don't come to The Source after you die. We are who we are. There I was created as I was. You don't become me…after. We are all our mother's children. We're a family. You have to be born into us. It's no different here. You have a mother, but she is weak. You are a family, but you are so broken there is little unity."

"How many of you are there?"

"Many."

"Do you all come here?"

He laughed again. "We do not. Only the blackest sheep come here. Well, not really. A few gray…perhaps like Alice."

"You knew one another there?"

"Yes. Though I have only recently recognized them."

"You've never…been with a woman?"

"Not in the way you worry about. I was, by your estimation, a virgin. Until you. You have ruined me for all others." He laughs and squeezes me. I laugh with him. I've not known him joyful. "But now we are one. You've had our version of a joining."

I hug him around the neck with all of my strength. "This one who loved you…I am jealous."

"Then you are jealous of my mother." He said this close to my ear.

"You have not had a girlfriend even?"

He squeezed me again. "It was always you in my mind. There I felt complete in myself."

I pulled back to see him, the joy so lovely in his handsome face. "How was I in your mind?"

He kissed my nose. "There are pairings where I'm from. There is no need to procreate. Our mother is the source of life. In that sense we are brothers and sisters. But we compliment one another in unique ways and so there are preferences. A man and a woman are a wholeness. They are unique. So there are…couples who serve together to know this wholeness, like Rose and Emmett, Alice and Jasper, some of the others. They find a mirror in one another, and yet they are different. It's a strong thing. Does that make sense to you?"

"All without sex?"

"We have no drive there for sex. Our euphoria is oneness with our mother. You're going to take it too far. It's not incestuous, it's merely contentment. We are so utterly content in her, there is no need to explore fulfillment in one another. That's the best way to explain it. We are partners there, not sexually." Then he picked me up and swung me in a circle. "We're eternal children if you will!" he growled into my neck as he spun me around, and we laughed. Then he sat again and we kissed. After a while, I pressed my forehead to his. His eyes were closed and his breathing unsteady, but there was a smile on his perfect lips.

"Are you made the same there?"

He kept his eyes closed as if remembering. "Yes, in form, yes. And often naked. Almost always naked unless we decide to decorate ourselves." He is smiling.

"Are you being serious?"

He pulled away and tilted back his head and laughed the loudest now. "Yes, my love. You see here, you are the source of one another. There, Mother is our source. She is the Source."

He covered my face with kisses.

"Are you going back? Do you miss it?" I asked loudly, loving the onslaught of affection.

My face was upturned so I could look into his eyes. He grew more sober and petted my hair. "My place now is with you. I cannot go back, nor would I choose to. Do I miss it? I've only now remembered it, in the speaking of it, to you. You are my home now. You are my source. And I will be yours."

"You've always known the others. They are your family."

"Yes. But not more-so than you. You will always be first."

"Why did you come? Why did you all come? It was perfect. You were happy."

"You're in trouble here. You're all in trouble. When we fought the war, centuries back…."

"Centuries?"

"Yes. We drove our brothers and sisters out. They spread to other planets. Many came here. And so the infection began. Over the passage of time…you are dying. Soon, you will be nothing but fire and dark ash, and they will rule without opposition." He is subdued now. The joy is banked. He strokes my hair, but stares into the fire. I see the flames in his eyes.

"Caius?"

He does not look at me, but a sad smile. "Caius. My step brother. We are of two fathers. They were brothers. In the war we divided according to bloodlines. There is the more powerful father, mine. There is the lesser father. Caius is his oldest son. He was beautiful and jealous."

"Were you the oldest son of your father?"

Edward drew a finger across my lips as he smiled so sadly. "Yes."

I gasped and put my hands on his face. "How can this be? How can you leave and come here?"

"This place once belonged to Caius's mother. She was the source here. But after the war, my father took it away and sent her to a dark roaming existence. She rules nothing now. But in her place, Caius tries to usurp. Your kind was put here to rule. Your mother is here, though she is weak. Caius abuses her every day. He and his family have tormented your kind, and you are too weak to oppose him. He is winning. You are dying by the thousands everyday. Soon, you will be gone. There will be no one to hold this place. He will become the source. So we have come, to add our blood to yours. To renew this planet. To rule."

"What…how…when they piled onto you…the words…."

"Yes, they drew from me. How starving they were, and I was not in unity with the others, so they feasted on me. As they've infected me, I have given them strength. Don't you know how they starve for home? For the Source? I gave them a taste. They were sated and powerless as they feasted. They were easy to defeat, but it came at a great price for my blood will renew them." He is bitter now, deadly as he stares into the fire. I feel his grip on me, it is steel.


	13. Chapter 13

Penitent 13

Edward and his brothers, they were all his brothers, liked to swim every morning in the lake, naked. They made so much noise birds would rise in worried flocks from the trees. One morning a polar bear came to investigate, rising on his great hind legs to a height that equaled Emmett's. How they loved this. Emmett raised before him, growling back, if that's what it could be called, the bear white and glorious, Emmett bare and muscled, arms spread out, fingers curled.

Emmett wanted to eat him, see what he tasted like bar-be-qued, but some of the others said they should refrain from killing him, there were so few left. They marked the beast, a broad red ex Emmett took delight in getting close enough to spray on his fur. He would be one of the chosen, they said.

One morning after their swim Edward rushed into the house, a towel carelessly wrapped around his hips, he approached me where I sat by the fire, legs tucked beneath me as I read. He ran toward me and scooped me up, holding me against his chest and stomach. I was still folded as I'd been while seated. I squealed with laughter. His skin was frigid, his scars were still a deep black against the bright red tinge of his flesh. His hair, always shaggy, was thick and wet, and he shook his head so the icy drops peppered my face. As he twirled me he lost the towel, and ran with me to our room, laughing and joyful.

"You only cover yourself for me," I told him as he pushed the door closed, hurried to our bed and tossed me upon it.

"You are the last I cover myself for," he said pouncing on the bed and landing over me.

"Hmmmm," he investigated me, head to knees. "What have we here?" He dropped to one elbow and ran his hand over me. His eyes darkened, and his brows pulled together. "Is this a human? A girl, then?" he asked, moving my shirt up, and making me gasp his hands were that cold.

"You're insane to swim in ice water! Don't touch me!"

I tried to roll away, but he easily pulled me back and pinned me down. "I am your king," he growled. "You will obey me, Isabella." He made quick work of my clothes then. I complied, though he allowed me to experience some of the strength in him. I scarce had time to process what was happening, and I was as bare as he.

He bent to kiss my neck, but pulled back quickly. "Isabella? You do know I'm teasing?"

I'd been holding my breath. I felt no fear. He had simply subdued me so easily. "I…."

He laughed then. "I'm so sorry," he stroked my face and kissed me gently. "I forget that you don't know me like this. I've never been a lover. I'm new at this too."

I didn't quite know how to explain, but tried to hide my face. He wouldn't allow it, but said my name. He was worried now.

"It's just…they treat you so royally. You're a bit…you don't even see it."

"See what love?" He pushed my hair back from my face, and ran his finger over my brow.

"Sometimes…I can glimpse how you must have been."

"I have never been like this. It's all new to me."

I shook my head. "That's not what I mean. They look up to you. There's…a natural authority."

"You mean I'm a tyrant?"

I kissed him. "You're joking and I'm trying to be serious."

"Then why are you giggling?"

"You're tickling me."

He laughed and stretched out beside me, arranging the covers over us and gathering me in his arms. "I admit I was a bit of a prince," he conceded.

"A prince. Do you know what a big deal a prince is?"

"Do you?" he asked.

"I'm sure I don't have an accurate picture. How is it you picked such a humble, ignorant girl?"

"Shhh," he said, kissing me. "Don't say such a thing. I told you, you drew me. There is no greatness without humility. And me? I'm just a man."

"You are no man," I protested.

"I am your man. That's who I am."

Before I could shove him playfully, his body went rigid and he sucked air between clenched teeth. He lay flat on his back, and his arms were straight, his eyes closed tightly, his hands in fists.

"Edward, what is it?"

Sweat had broken out on his brow and all along his body. I sat up, pulling the covers tight to his chin.

The veins in his neck were bulging. "Get…get Jasper."

I jumped off the bed and looked frantically for my clothes. I put them on with haste and ran from the room calling Jasper.

Several came running. "Edward!" I said. They followed me back to the bedroom. Edward was worse. He was still straight as a board, but he groaned in agony. I was on my knees beside him, my hands moving ineffectively over his face.

The group parted and Jasper entered, hurrying to Edward's side. He tore the covers back. The etched words were moving.

"What is this?" I screamed.

Jasper placed his hands over Edward's chest. The others drew close and joined hands around him as I'd seen them do before. They sang then, low and steady, like chanting with melody.

Edward continued to grimace. I didn't know how to help, so I held onto his tense forearm and stared at his tormented face.

"Trace the words, Bella," Jasper said calmly. "Tell him how much you love him."

I did that, feeling the evil stirring in the black ruts. As I traced them, they grew less volatile. Over and over my fingers traced the scars. We worked on the front, and in time Jasper turned Edward and we traced over his back and legs. After an undetermined amount of time, Edward grew limp. Then he seemed to have fallen asleep.

Slowly the others left. I had grown quiet, my love a constant unstoppable thought.

Jasper was helping me to calm down and grow still, but the word love would not cease to be in my mind.

When it was over, I sat on the bed, unable to disconnect my hand from Edward's. I had to keep touching him. There was no where else for me.

"You are powerful to him," Jasper finally spoke.

"I don't feel powerful. What happened to him? One minute he was fine…."

"He is infected."

"What does that mean? He's been doing so well. Is there a cure, or will this happen again? Will it worsen?"

"Bella, Edward is the first one to come here alone. He suffered long to get here. For many years they kept him trapped. He fought viciously. When he arrived, he had no idea who he was. He was alone. We had given up. We weren't sure it was him. He…wasn't recognizable."

"Where was he? What happened to him?"

"Your borders are well protected. To come here alone and survive alone…it's never been done."

"Why did you let him come? Why didn't you help him?"

"We had no say. He chose to stay behind. He was content."

"Then why did he come?"

"To start again. With you. When he came…."

"He told me." I referred to the man he killed, the one who'd attacked him, the man who's identity he'd taken.

"Yes. But it's you he went to first. He was starving for love."

"He told me this."

"You saved him. But we didn't know. We didn't know if he had…fallen."

"Like Caius and the others?"

Jasper said no more. Edward had awakened and he watched me. "Is he telling you ghost stories?" he asked me, his voice weak, though he smiled at me.

Jasper stood still, his eyes on Edward. Edward's attention was mine. Jasper touched his brother's shoulder. "I am near." Edward did not acknowledge him and he left.

Edward pulled me gently to his side. He wrapped his arms around me and held me so tight. It could not be tight enough. I moved and frantically kicked my pants off. I put my leg over him, and he entered me. There was no question that this was what he needed, what I needed. He lifted his hips, and I moved on him, bringing us both to a needy release.

He held me then, close. I was poured out over him. "Bella…I heard you…in a place so dark…I heard you."

"Nothing can stop our love. Nothing. I am incensed that they could reach into our BED and take you from me. But the more they throw at us, the more the darkness comes…the more we'll love. I'm certain," I say. He pulls me to him, beneath him, and enters me again.

"You make me hope," he whispers as he begins to thrust and thrust. And we are strong.


	14. Chapter 14

Penitent 14

Edward held his arm around my waist. He'd been teaching me to ski. He'd only learned how himself, but he picked up things very fast. His family were excellent skiers, darting down the steepest slopes with grace and their usual level of fearlessness.

He held me on the top of one of the more modest peaks. The vista around us was white and vast. He pointed to Alice, obvious to me in the distance with her big red knitted hat bobbing on her head as she whizzed down the mountain in a straight line. "She is stealth," he said. "Her opponent cannot predict where she will strike."

He asked me to guess about Emmett. I guessed correctly when I blurted, "Strength."

"And Rose?" he asked seeming proud.

"She's brave."

"Yes. Courage is her essence. But you said as much. How did you know?"

His hands were joined around me. I leaned my head against his chest. "She has protected me more than once. She doesn't run."

"And Jasper?"

"Leader?"

"Skill," Edward said. Many levels of understanding. But Skill is what he's called."

"And you?" I ask.

"I am a revelation, they used to say. They sang that once."

"Do you remember how it went? Your song?"

He shook his head. "It's no longer in me," he said. "But my self…they called me Wisdom."

"Wisdom. Were you like a sage?"

"No. Not like that. I was with them, not distant, not revered. Just with them. And I was wise. I remember how it was. I was amongst them. I was…a warrior. We all were, all of my family. But we did not fight the way you think. We sparred with might and valor, yes, but with songs, with knowing. With wisdom and courage, with a unity of purpose and thought. We fought with our minds first. Our hands…after."

Emmett's yells sounded over the valley between the two mountains, the one we stood upon, the one they intersected in strong grooved lines.

"So it's not like here?"

"No. It's not. And yet, all of who we are we need. The battle here is raw and primitive. Like life is here. Like love. And that is its splendor, I think. The simple brutality of it. The beauty. It's fragile and here…and gone so quickly it's like a dream."

He untangled his skies from mine then, and I watched him push off. I was behind him, slower and with less grace, but competent enough. My arms were not as strong as they should be, and my legs were weary with the need to slow it down. I needed to be more active. I'd worked hard all of my life, but to be robust and out of doors was never my experience. Rather I was pale and thin, though Edward often told me how the roundness of my breasts and hips captivated him. I did not feel round, not next to these women whose feminine attributes seemed exaggerated, even if their bone structures were small. I only knew the women in church, well robed women, in statues and in person. But these were different, and their modesty was contrived for my benefit.

Until the incident later that day.

It started with an angry wail. A woman's crushed heart captured in gory sound. They gathered, coming from outside and in, twenty of them, hair of all colors, Edward's the most brilliant, the most striking, as if it was the shadow of the very real crown he'd once worn.

She fell before Edward, where he stood on the stairs, me behind him as we'd come running like the others. It was Irina. "He has betrayed me…he has betrayed…," she cried.

"Garret?" Edward asked.

"And Kate," she choked out.

Then, "No, no," she'd wailed, on all fours, head loose on her neck the way it wagged side to side, hanging low. The mood in the room, despair. The others, sick and gasping, dismayed. Sad as it was, how could it affect them like this when they'd seen so much, had fought the fallen ones, how could it leave them murmuring amongst themselves, shielding one another, holding one another, crying breaking out across the room as if it was the worst thing?

"Irina," Edward said taking her hand and lifting her to her knees. Her face…bludgeoned by emotion. "Get up. Stand up, sister."

She looked at him, sniffing, quieting, but not calm. Not at peace, not nearly. But she was gaining something, the ability to stand, when something was ruined, something had died.

Tanya came on one side of her, Athena on the other. They looked so sad, I wondered how they'd console her without coming apart themselves.

Then into the room, like a flurry, another woman, dark-haired Kate, falling in the door, clothing askew, feet bare. On her knees, as if she'd just had the strength to make it. "Find him, get him, he's beneath the ice. He'll die. He'll die!" she screamed to the space of flooring between her hands.

Emmett rushed, Jasper and others. And slowly Edward sat. Feet wide apart. Elbows resting on his knees. Back straight. And the others spread throughout the room and waited. One started to sing, then others, slow music, choppy.

I sat behind Edward, my hand reached for and rested on his shoulder. He did not move to acknowledge me, and still I felt his response, and how I made him strong, even as his legs had softened with his dismay. Irina was embraced by her sisters and they stood before him, eyes closed, as though bereaved.

Kate's sobbing grew softer, then quiet. But she stayed bent, then curled on the floor.

And after a time Jasper and Emmett dragged Garrett in, drenched, tall. He was a long man, wet and limp, face down, long legs dragging past Kate, through the maze of the others, to Edward on the stairs where they laid him like a rug. He did not move.

"He lives, just," Jasper said.

"Is there no song for him?" Kate asked, her head raised now.

"Was he infected?" Rose asked, hoping to understand his audacity, I supposed.

"I am infected, and still I do not serve it," Edward said, and I am amazed at the venom in his tone. I thought he'd be more readily forgiving, but then, I have never seen him in such a role.

"You cannot compare him to you," Kate yelled. "It was something we've never known, more powerful…I wanted him." She rises to her knees now. Irina is screaming, and her sisters fight to restrain her. "Yes," Kate yells, madly, I wanted him with such a power. His flesh called to me. Each morning…I waited to see him, waited to touch myself as I lusted over his powerful frame, his beauty. My old name called to his. He was my mate, not yours. Not yours," she is screaming this to Irina. "Damn you, damn you, damn you…" She lowers slowly back to the floor where she lays sobbing, "Damn you all."

Irina screams and writhes in her sisters' arms, "I will kill you! I will rip your head off and chew on your bones, I will purge your songs from the memories of my brothers and sisters and all who remember this day will spit on the earth and curse your name."

Edward stood slowly. I stood as well, though I withdrew my hand, for I did not understand what all of this meant, and in his shoulder I felt a hardening that made my heart quicken.

"Irina. Be still," he commanded.

Irina swallowed, panting, but she slumped in her sisters' arms as though all the fight had drained from her.

"Stand, Kate," Edward said.

Others helped Kate onto her feet, and brought her closer to Edward, though not too close as Irina stiffened again thinking they'd draw too near.

Kate pulled away from those who had helped her. "You have always been the arrogant fool," she addressed Edward. "Now you think to rule me here as you did there when our mother's smile was the sun meant only for you."

"Your tongue has split," Edward said with disgust.

"I knew you would say it."

"Yes, Foresight. That's what we said about you all those eons. 'She sees the future.'" He had mocked this last sentence.

"It was not foresight. It was intelligence. And still it is. So easy to look intuitive around the dull-witted," she sneered.

"So we are attacked from within, and you are yielded to him oh Intelligent One?" 

"I am not yielded. I am in love. I am human…unlike you who shall remain nothing—not favored, not human, not alive…and not brave enough to die." She spat on the floor and glared at him.

"You claim humanity, sister. Well they have laws as well, and you have violated them."

"And you are better? Murderer. Do you think I don't see the guilt? We share the stories. Do you think we should overlook everything, as if we are there and not here? Even there you sought to hold the standard you judged us by. Here you are just obnoxious."

"I never claimed to be your judge. And yet you have put me in that place yet again. So I will judge, and you will not like it. You have betrayed your sister. You have betrayed us all with your whoring."

Kate raised her head and growled. "She is not my keeper. She is not my sister. We are all orphans here. I do not recognize you as my lord."

"I do not recognize you as my sister. But I have seen your kind. Betrayal is ancient amongst the fallen."

"You call me fallen? Then what are you? You take up with that?" She pointed to me, "And what shall come of it? What shall your offspring be? We have no ability to reproduce. Not even here. We are a sterile race. We must choose this battle, unlike those who are born into this hellish place. We must fight our way in with full knowledge, like the perversions we are. Yet you, you the favored son, will instigate a new breed. A new race. You, once again, are the great hope. You didn't come to serve, you came to be worshipped, as usual. Hallelujah. Your precious seed shall save us all. Goodie, goodie. It took you long enough. Not too sturdy when left by your lonesome? Could it be you need the peons to get anything done? But let us not speak poorly of the bearer of the special seed that shall give this poor charred place its new beginning. I suppose that once we journey to our father, we shall spend the next cazillion years hearing, yet again, of your singular greatness, as if the rest of us are, as always, the chorus to your solitary performance."

"You tell it as it is." Edward says.

"And I am to deny myself love in this place? One consolation as I lead my pointless existence in your service yet again?"

"Have we not loved you?" I have never experienced the tone in his voice. He does not love her. Not now. 

"I have lost my mother!" she yells, the madness in her eyes almost unbearable to look at. "And worse, I never had her. I see that now. If she loved me she would have never let me come here!"

"You speak as the fallen. You must acknowledge this breach. You are justifying this."

"I am lonely." Her truth is gut-wrenching to me. Yet Edward stands tall without emotion.

"Are you infected?" Rose interrupts, addressing Kate.

"No. I am human now. I denounce such a brother…such a family. I want someone. I want Garrett. I want his love. I took it. I enticed him. Seduced him."

Irina is screaming.

"If you won't repent, you have to go. We can't trust you if you won't acknowledge."

"Then I shall be alone in this place. They'll capture me and feed on me," Kate screams.

"And so they will," Edward says walking quickly to where she is. "So I ask you one more time, do you acknowledge the betrayal?"

"I will not." They stare at one another.

"Cast her out," he says.

Garrett struggles to life now. "No. Edward." He is too feeble to stand.

"You have no say," Edward says, harsh and unmoveable. I've never known him this way. What plan does he speak of? Am I a breeder of some sort? Who is he being now? He speaks as though his purpose is not love at all. Did he pick me for my naïveté? For my human hips that were so ready for him? Is this not love? Is he against it? Is love, to him, some low human behavior? I move around him and stand defensively before Kate.

"You can't do this to her. You can't cast her away. Caius will take from her. She'll know the agony you know. Where is your mercy? What gives you the right?"

There is a buzz in this room. They are not with me, they are with him. They are angry that I have spoken thus to him. They are ready to defend him.

And he stands with them.


	15. Chapter 15

Penitent 15

I had fled to our room, but he came after me. I knew I couldn't look at him. I had to find strength, I had to think. I'd been blinded by love for him. Blinded.

But there was no closing him out. I pushed on the door and he did not honor it, but pushed in after me. "This isn't us," he told me, coming quick, backing me up to the wall.

"It seems cruel," I told him, my shoulders pushed high.

"No, no," he whispered.

I tried not to look at him, his eyes, still holding something foreign, something so harsh, as harsh at the cold stones at my back.

"You won't look at me," he accused. "You want to leave me. Even now my touch sickens you."

"No, not sickens." I push at him then, wanting space. "Too much change. I wonder…will I ever see St. James again…Father Charles?" I step around him and walk to the far wall.

"You've never voiced this. You broke with your past."

"I was taken," I said with such emotion my voice closed on the last word and I had to gasp to open my throat.

"Yes," he drew close and I felt his struggle not to touch me, "from me. Taken from me and making me crazed. I can't be without you. Yet you think of going away from me. You let Kate's lies infect you."

"I'm not infected. I'm not the one who bears the scars," I told him, my voice shaking, but I was looking at him now, and it wasn't easy to stay strong.

"You can't say things like this to me."

"Is that an order or my lover's plea?"

"You don't know the difference? You don't know me now?"

"Not now. You had no mercy on her."

"She had none on Irina."

"Where does it stop? If you send her away she dies. You of all should remember how it was. They'll feast on her as they did on you, but there will be no one to save her."

"We have never known her kind of betrayal before."

"And Garrett? Did you give the order to have him put under the ice?'

"That was his choice. He knew he'd done the unforgivable."

"Who draws that line? You?" I was trembling.

He took another step toward me. "You don't know what we're up against here. I can't tolerate betrayal. Everything is opposed to us. We've never tolerated a lack of unity. If we turn on one another, we have no hope."

"And what of me? Am I the hope? Did you marry me to breed? They took me…for you. That was always the plan."

"No. They took you independently of me. They didn't recognize me. They weren't sure. It had taken me so long to get here. They lost faith. But you…I came to you. I couldn't help myself. Forgive me. I was drawn. There was no plan or thought. I didn't know who you were, only that you were here. All I had was my need. And I let it lead, and I came to you."

My eyes close. How I want to believe. But her voice…it is so newly and clearly in my head. And some of what she said, it had the ring of truth. "What did she mean…you're sterile. Our offspring?"

"We are joined. That can't be hidden from them. They knew we had mated when they took you from me. I told you how it was for us. But here it's different. We are changing here. The forces around us…we are changing." He pulled away from me then and sat on the bed, elbows on his wide-spread knees. He wasn't sure of so many things.

"You're changing."

He lifted his head and looked at me. "I can't be without you."

"What does that mean? You literally can't because I'm part of the plan…or you love me that much."

He continued to rip into me with his gaze, his emotion, the rise and fall of his chest, the despair in his shoulders, the anger in his clenching fists.

"Both," he said finally.

"Both. So she spoke the truth? I am part of some…scheme…. What can I possibly do? What difference can I make?"

"It's all you, Bella. It's always been you."

"But I'm a girl from the basement of a church…I'm nothing."

"And yet…Caius has sought to take you from me. And I am powerless without you. Can't you see it?"

I was shaking my head no. The weight of what he was saying terrified me.

He stood slowly. "He has infected me. Do you know how many years I have fought. I've known nothing but war. You are how I have entered. You are how I have withstood all he could throw at me. You."

"You're wrong. You're…crazy."

"I won't fight that, love. Where you are concerned…I'm mad. But you are joined to me now, and it's unthinkable that we should ever part. I thought you understood that when you wrote on my skin."

"I wrote on your skin?"

"Yes. The prophecy…the blood ran pure that day. Our love is more powerful than the greatest darkness."

"If I stay because of fear…then we have nothing."

"How has it turned to fear? Just this morning…an hour ago our love was bigger than the mountains we played upon. How has it left you so quickly?" He is shouting now, filled with despair, ripping at his hair, speaking with his hands as they flail and he turns to each of the walls pacing the distance then back again.

"Love…yes I love. But I must speak freely…you are filling me with fear."

"You can't leave me. You are filling me with fear. How can I make you feel as you did before? How can I trust you if you're not willing to stay with me?"

"I never said I wasn't staying. Where would I go? I'm miles from home!"

"I am your home! Did you think that cold cellar and those crumbs of food were given in love? You've not known love until me! He used you and kept you as his slave. Love? You've never seen it! You've been starved! I've given you everything I am…every bit of space in my heart. You're all I've cared about! All I've thought about! Nothing has been able to keep me from you! And you reject me! You crave the cold cellar! You crave the company of broken statues and cellar filth to my company, my touch!" He is so close to me now, his eyes crazed, his teeth, spittle, strength in his face, voice so loud, hands moving, eyes breaking into me they are so intense, piercing me. I am flat against the wall, my chin pulled in, my lips parted, my eyes holding his as I wait to die.

He falls on his knees before me and grips my thighs, burying his face against my stomach. "Oh my love, my love, you cannot speak of not loving me. You must love me. Do you love me? Oh my heart, my heart you must tell me of your love, oh love me. Love me." A clawing up me, until he stands gathering me against himself, kissing over my face, tears and begging lips. Hands pulling, plucking, at my waist, pulling at my clothes.

I want to resist. I want to say no, not like this, but there are no words in my mind, just no. No. But he begs, and he moves us, we are on the bed now, and he shifts and pulls until we are together and he can move into me, and I do not try to stop him, because as much as I pity him, as much as he rips my heart to shreds, I love him beyond all reason, even as I fear him, even as I fear who he really is, even then, I open myself to him, and try to show as I hold him to me, kissing his neck, my mouth seeking his, finding his, even as I let him spill into me, even as I quiet him, still him with my tight embrace, even then as he lays heavy and spent upon me, panting, crying softly, kissing me softly, whispering his love, his never-ending enduring love, I know, I know, I can't leave him. And yet…I must reach Kate. I must try to help her.

For she has been as foolish in love as me.


	16. Chapter 16

Penitent 16

Edward has acknowledged that they are changing, but so am I. Everytime we make love, I am more of something else, something new. How does this change manifest? The way I see it is through the confidence I have, even when terrified. I say I long for my home, but could my home hold me now? Perhaps. If I could stand in the pulpit and confront the destruction.

To slip away from Edward, from the rest, is impossible. So I must be bold in what I will ask. Demand? I'm not yet sure. But ask I will.

We eat. They have learned food. They are still finding out its delights, even on the limited offerings the world can now belch up. I am just glad to have enough.

So while we eat, and Edward strokes my hair, staring idly forward, slumped on the bench beside me like a king, I say, "I need my own house."

They all still, the beautiful eyes on me all around this table as they nibble, as they chew, then swallow, then still. I am conscious of the wave of goodwill Jasper sends to me as well as everyone around the table. I know that much. It is for us all. But it does not altar my mission, just my desire to scream if I must, to pound my fists.

They look to Edward. He has had his knee bent, his long strong arm resting on it, his long-fingered hand hanging limply. Now he puts his foot on the floor and straightens, steepling his hands between his spread knees. "You say this? And here?" He is condescending. I know Kate has been banished, Garrett hung in a tree. I know I have no vote here, no say. But that was me yesterday. Today, after the time in our bed where he took me, and I let him, and he gave me…everything, again. And yet again. I am more.

And so I wait. And surprised, I have surprised him. In his sated state he had imagined me subdued. Did he not tell me, did he not say from his own sculpted lips I would become more like him, even as he, even as he becomes human? Oh, he didn't say the part about becoming human. He didn't seem to know the effect I would have. And throw in the love bites from his dark demonic brothers, and well, we have a mix.

His attention has softened. It's that I see play out in his eyes as he grapples with my question, my simple question. He has not been intune with my discontent. Alas and so I am no longer his supreme focus. But it was never me in the pure way he'd hoped. It was always about him and his ache to be loved.


	17. Chapter 17

Penitent 17

Edward has told his brothers and sisters to go. We are alone at the table now. But I know they listen. They see.

He has not moved, sitting bent forward on my left, his head down as he seems to ponder the floor, as he chews the inside of his strong cheek, as he is unblinking, a beautiful sculpture, a torn vision, and I know fear.

"This very night past, you have lain with me. We have been one. You have taken me into your body, my seed is alive in you."

Could his seed be alive in me? "Yes," I acknowledge.

"And you did this," he looks at me now, his gaze dark and penetrating, "without oneness in your heart?"

I wait for the right words. "You come from a world where oneness means sameness, as if you all share a brain." I mean no disrespect. I'm trying to understand and hope my tone conveys my sincerity. "That kind of oneness is not possible for me. Oneness, for me, is a decision, a continuous choice to work out the obstacles." I don't know how I know this, but I do. I am more intelligent than I've ever known myself to be. I understand things. I can relate my small life to a bigger picture now.

"And what do you perceive to be the obstacle to loving me?" Him, the torn self leading.

"I do love you. There is no barrier to that. But loving you is not without struggle."

"Love and struggle?" He looks confused. His heavy brow lowers over his eyes. "If love is real, the outside forces that seek to take it away are the place of struggle. But between the lovers there is only harmony."

"Not in my world."

"Oh…so I am in your world now? And what have you ever known about your world? You've had the ant's view, a subterranean view. When you did emerge it was to hear one point of view…one ineffective point of view based in fear…a whispering voice in a pulpit while the world went to cinders. So tell me, what do you know of how the worlds came to be and the great cosmic struggle? What do you know little ant?" He has turned to me and pulled my chair before him, placing my knees between his own.

I swallow hard. This is no time to lose my nerve. I don't want to. "I know about us. What good is it to understand the worlds, and fail at love?"

His lips part, and he stares at me. I want to place my hands against his cheeks. And I want to put my hands around his neck.

"Am I failing at love?" He is angry and afraid. He is angry at what I suggest. He is afraid I am correct, more knowledgeable than he.

"Yes," I whisper, my tone the only way I can soften this.

"With you?"

"Yes." My voice stronger.

"And you want to leave me? You ask for a house, degrading me, confusing them." His voice is stronger. His eyes burn bright.

"I ask for a place where I can go to be alone and renew. I am different than…all of you. You are a family. Sometimes…it overwhelms me. I'm changing. And I can scarce realize the changes with you all so close around me, telling me how to feel, manipulating my emotions, challenging my thoughts."

His eyes shine with rejection. "Liar. You are a liar. That is a difference in us. I was warned. Caius spoke to me in the pile up. He whispered darkness into my head as he clawed at my flesh. 'She will crush you. We will wait.'"

Is that what this was? Was it Caius changing me and not my union with Edward? No. I couldn't let this confusion overtake me. I loved Edward. "I am not in league with Caius. I love you." Such protectiveness came out of me then. In one movement I was on my knees, my hands on his cheeks as I'd envisioned. "He is the liar. He would come between us now. He's infected you."

But Edward's eyes did not soften. "And you. Don't you know it's why you are dying? He's winning. It's not your environment, not even the bombs you so ruthlessly unleashed on one another. It's him. He won't stop until he has this world back. He's always seen it as his. You're the interlopers. You're the ones it was given to in the rebellion. And your greed has ruined it. He waits. A thousand and a thousand years he has waited and it's nothing to him. He waits for the prize. It's you he has defeated. Never me." With that he stands, and I fall back to the floor and am barely out of the way as he steps to the massive heavy table and upends it, dishes flying, throwing it against a wall with a mighty crash as he growls so loudly it echoes off the walls. He walks to the door, but he does not turn to look at me, he merely stops, and shoulders slouched, he extends a long arm against the door's frame almost as if holding himself upright. "I will not deny you your house. But what you do not understand…I cannot stop loving you ravenously. Madly. For me…for my kind…there is no choice."

"Kate made one. Garrett," I say, not even consciously forming this ready answer. It is out before I think.

He pulls his arm from the frame. "They would say it came through me, through my union with you changing them all. They would say it is not choice…it is the nature to lie." He slams his fist against the doorframe, and goes out.

And I do not pursue him.


	18. Chapter 18

Penitent 18

My new home is a hut made of steel, formerly used for snow related equipment. It is lighted by a single bare bulb. "Go there," he had said, his back to me. "I cannot deny you."

There is a cot and a hotplate, a bin of potatoes, a sack of flour, a sack of meal, a basket of apples, a can of oil, a box of salt. A pan. A dish. A fork.

I have one room, but my own pantry. A first. Such abundance, and all mine.

I have a box for my clothes. I have many warm clothes. They are folded now, in the box. I have two books. They sit beside my bed holding other adventures. I have a small coal oil heater and a can of oil Emmett has warned me to keep well away from one another even as he has appointed himself the task of tending this heat-source.

I live alone now. For the two days since he'd let me be escorted here, I have been unattended except for once a day when Emmett checks. I have heard a sound, a howl if you will, but when I concentrate I only hear my breathing, and I think I've imagined it. And yet…there it is again. Like agony.

The strength I've known has left me. It's like I am waiting for a storm. I am still, like a rabbit, as I wait but for the first day, all I can find the energy to do is lay on my side, my knees drawn close. I breathe. I cry like a weakling. I miss him. I pine for him, as I know he does for me. And the fact that he wants to be with me always, yet allows me this choice…makes me love him all the more.

I make a plan.

It has been so long since I was alone. I know how to do this…for almost my whole life I learned to be contented with nothing but the stories in my head. But that was before I knew Edward, and love, and companionship. Now I can only feel his absence, and this is as consuming…well nearly as consuming as his presence. So I'm angry with myself, and resolved to not be dominated when I must be here for a greater purpose than my own completion. There is much to do. All around me I can feel the suffering. Even the frozen whiteness cannot shut it out. For suffering has a voice in the stillness if you learn to hear.

On the second night I dress warmly. The moon lights a path on the hard packed snow. My snow shoes do not mark the surface it is so solid. I walk in the open. Stealth is for Alice, not for me. I am not afraid of them following me. They can help when I reach Garrett. He hangs in a tree, not far from here. The tree grows twisted in a stark place, and as I draw near I see his distorted body hanging, but also a second dark shape attached to him.

I grip my ski poles more tightly. "Get off of him," I scream, knowing I will have to die defending what can only be a corpse.

I keep trudging forward though my feet are leaden with the urge to turn and run. When I am ten feet away a dark figure separates from the grotesque sight of Garrett's tattered, picked over flesh. It jumps to the ground, tall and powerful, dressed in black ski wear. It pulls the knitted hat from its head and I see it is a man, a well-formed man. Behind him Garret's remains swing, a pendulum of tattered flesh.

Is this dark creature Edward? I draw closer still, oh so disturbed.

For all the familiarity in looks, there is no essence I recognize here. He is not Edward, but could be, the resemblance so striking. What is different is…everything. The stance is ease and power, the color of the eyes, ink. The skin more olive. The hair longer, wilder, darker, shining in disarray. The brow just as heavy but more. More bulk as well in neck and shoulders, in legs, in his long booted feet. He is just more.

I see the swinging meat that was Garrett.

This one's eyes do not leave me. Shiny coal riveted on me, looking up and down. "The lamb comes to the lion," he says.

I shake my head. I cannot deny I have been foolish. His lips are so red. His tongue drags over them. He grins at me. Or is this a leer? He takes a step. I put my hand up. He stops.

"Who are you?" I whisper.

"Anything you desire," he says. The grin again.

"I don't understand…are you one of Edward's…?"

"No." Quick and flat. "It's you I came for."

I move back a little. I can't stand still.

"What were you…?" I point to what is left of Garrett.

"I tried to let him down. Proper burial. But it's tied too tight around the neck. I don't have my knife. Do you…have a knife?" He smiles at me as he waits. I want to believe him, want to as the wind carries me the scent of Garrett, as I see a dark splotch on this man's coat. Man? I do not know.

I shake my head. Besides the ski poles and my own trembling hands I am without a weapon.

He moves a little closer. Not close, just nearer. He is handsome, so handsome, in a darkly terrifying way. There is a wildness. He's called himself a lion, but has he been feeding as one?

The shadow of a beard covers a jaw as powerful as Edward's. His teeth are very white and strong looking as he smiles and inches forward. "I would never hurt you."

"I have to go back now."

"Can I go with you? Anything could come upon you alone like this. Why are you here?"

I point again to Garrett. "I'm going back. I'll be fine."

"Please," another step toward me. "Let me see you back safely. Was this your man? Who did this to him?"

"I didn't know him well. His name was Garrett. My husband knew him."

"Where is your husband? How is it he lets you traipse through the night by yourself in such a hostile place?"

I don't want to answer. I feel protective of Edward. This isn't his mistake, it is mine. But Garrett? Head gone, his neck a bloody stump, his limbs gone, his torso shredded. That is Edward's doing, and that's what brought me here. I don't know what I expected to accomplish, but I've nursed a secret hope that Garret lived. He was strong, like Edward. I'd hoped there was a chance.

"Are you the woman I felt here…alone and pining…are you her?"

His hand is so quickly on me. I make a fearful noise. My heart is thudding in my ears.

It might be Kate. "It is not me. My husband is looking for me. I must go."

"I shall protect you."

"Who are you? Are you one of them?"

"Of them?"

"Are you from another place…another…world?"

He throws his head back and laughs. "You're no innocent, but yet…you are."

"I…they will give you hospitality. We are not cruel here."

He looks back at Garrett, then to me, one brow raised, lips amused.

"You must respect my husband. You must be very…careful. He will not take it well if you harm me."

"Why do you say such a thing? Have I been anything but cordial?" He looks amazed and hurt, his hand splayed over his heart.

He puckers his lips as though wounded. He mocks me, then grows serious, the pinpoints of light in his gaze drawing me to him.

"If you were mine, beauty, I would not leave you unprotected and wet with desire."

I gasp, and turn to leave. This is wrong, so wrong.

His hand tightens on me quickly, his warm lips against my ear, his hot breath chilling me. "Oh, you are lush and sweet," he breathes in. "So ready to be taken. So fertile I hear your velvet parts throb against one another…swollen and ripe." His hand touches me there, grips me hard.

A burst of energy sears through me and I struggle against him, but he laughs as he so easily traps me in his arms and continues the assault, "He wanted the virgin. I seek the whore. With me you would not dress, you would not think of food or sleep. You would crave me and I would sate you…taking you to the pinnacle…letting you drop again and again." One of his hands moves to my breast and he caresses me. "I would show you what you are for. He has not touched you…" he pinches my nipple so hard. "He cannot. He loves you in fear. But I…I have left fear long behind me."

I pant. He holds me upright. Whatever I now feel…betrayal surely, I can't say what all it is, but it grips me more completely than his hands on my arms. He has pulled me against him, all along my back I feel his size and strength. Smell the blood, the animal. The words, the breathing hold me, leave me unable to resist him.

He suddenly pulls his arms away. Some sense of survival kicks in. I do not look at him, but lunge forward. I have to get some air in my lungs, feel my feet move. He is terror at my back.

The world tilts, my snowshoes are lost. I am moving in his arms. I have been carried by the others, but he holds me differently, turned toward him so he can stare into my face, so he can feel the press of me against him.

The blood along his front soaks into my white coat. I want to protest, I am protesting in the back room of my brain. "You will give yourself to me," he says, the smile in place, but then, with certainty. "You will give yourself to me."


	19. Chapter 19

Penitent 19

*I had to delete 19 and 20 because they were two versions of the same chapter. Don't know how I posted both, but I've been working a lot of hours and apparently I'm not as swift as I'd like to think. So sorry to you my dear readers. If you're still with me—well you're even greater than I thought initially. Thanks. So this is a repeat. I'll try to carry on in a more organized fashion.

*Violence here. Turn away now if you are tender, dearhearts.

When I awaken the first thing I hear is the singing. I rise and ache everywhere. I push my heavy hair back from my face and groan. I have been hurt. There are bruises on my arms, purple chains of roses, but it's my joints that protest. When I stand, even the bottoms of my feet. And between my legs…searing pain.

I gasp then, and fall back to the bed. Before I can remember, the door opens. Rose stands there, tight pink ski pants, a white coat with fur, the sun sharp behind her, her long blonde hair streaming beneath a white and pink knitted hat. She sings with the others, but I know from experience they are strewn about, doing many things, able to hear one another when they shouldn't be. She enters my room, the rush of frigid pure air gives me strength.

"Stay down," she says.

The music is still in her tone. I will stay down. I can't do much else. "What…?"

"Happened to you? You were taken in the snow. Taken, as in…against your will. Your defiance nearly cost you your life. Do you remember?"

Images beckon my attention, but I don't want to know, so I stare at my battered arms and shake my head. "Where is Edward?"

She hisses at me. "We will not speak of him now. You will not ask or say his name. At sunset we leave this place. Until then you will rest."

I am already protesting. I say, "No, no," many times. "I must see him."

"We will not speak of it now. If I have to bring Jasper, I will."

"You threaten me? Why won't you answer my questions? Where is my husband?" I stand now. I am no longer so frail, I am angry. Nearly hysterical. Only this woman's cold gaze keeps me from leaping upon her like a fiend.

I won't wait for her to refuse me yet again. I stagger as I search for pants and sink my feet into them, struggling to yank them up my legs. Then I fall to the bed and shove my feet into my fur-lined boots. Standing again, I rip off the robe someone has put on me. I find several shirts and put them on one over the other. Where's the jacket, the jacket, in the corner like a dead animal. I pick it up, stop when I see the red stains.

It all comes back, every scene, every scream. Garrett…then the dark one separating and landing with such sickening grace. The Lion. The fear. And the resemblance…the suddenness of his grip, the strength, the tearing away of my clothing, the cold sting of the snow, the horror of his hands on me, the desire it stirred, the surrender, the suffocating penetration, his weight upon me, the euphoria, the guilt even as I succumbed to the sensation of an ecstasy so violent I feared death.

The ripping of my heart as he left me there. The horror of his wailing in the night, in the distance, the sound of the trees as they shattered, further. And further.

I remember it all, and I stagger and hold my stomach even as I throw down the coat and stomp it viciously.

"Edward," I scream, falling to my knees, "Edward." It is a voice I have never known. The door again, bursting wide, the others there—Jasper, Alice, Emmett. And Rose, upon me, restraining me, weakening me even as I fight. Until I grow so weak I can't see them without effort, can't hear them, and it's fading. It's fading. And I whisper, "Edward."

"Awaken her." Before my eyes are open, I know the voice belongs to Alice.

I shift on the hard surface and open my eyes. "Where…?"

"Give her water," Alice says.

My eyes have closed again, but my head is lifted, and a cup…cold water touches my lips and I drink. As I do it feels like silver mercury it is that pristine cold, calling me to life all the way down.

"Where?" I ask again, my throat sore even with the water.

"We are underground," Alice explains. "It's all you need to know."

Gently, Rose lays my head back on the pillow. I notice how they are both sleeveless and their foreheads shine with sweat. I notice that they look warily at one another, and their faces are hardened and dirty, their hair matted against their heads.

When my eyes are closed, from somewhere behind me Emmett speaks. "I wish I were ignorant and carried in a state of unconsciousness."

Rose laughs, but it's not light or easy. "That's real valorous of you babe. Real heroic."

"Just sayin'," he says, a smile in the words. I can picture him, as the brother, not the warrior, that side is fierce, but the brother, the one who filled my heater with the oil, the thought of him comforts me.

I have a vague sense of travel, misery, sharp awareness, then nothing until I am jarred awake again. Always the piercing cold water, the sense of a silver drip running through me, healing me. Once fierce sounds. Once jarred and thrown. Carried, always carried on a stretcher of sorts. Being jostled. Being driven. Being loaded. Being unloaded. Always their voices near, speaking to one another, unaware of me. Then aware of me. Orders given concerning me. The sound of them living, sometimes arguing, sometimes arguing fiercely. The smell of them. Their anger. Their songs. Their duty.

They do not say his name. It's that I listen for. Some days I ask. Some days I can only think. They warn me not to pine, to stop pining.

I am sick. I am so sick. I never eat. Just drink. The thirst I know is fierce, and they are my mothers.

But one day I am awake. I stare at the ceiling above me. It is woven from reeds pushed together over a stick form. Something crawls over me and stops. I lift my head, too swiftly and pain spears my temple. But I see the lizard frozen on me. I move my arm and it skitters away. I rise then. A white sheet is over me. And as I lift my stiff and sore body, my hands splay against my stomach. It protrudes. It moves.

Life there. Life in me.

"Alice!" I call. "Alice!" The room groans and sways a bit as Alice appears from an opening…in the floor. Rose climbs in after her.

They stand and look at me. They are scantily clothed, and their skin glows from the heat. "It's alright, Bella. You're safe for now."

I look to my stomach, my hands upon it, and feel movement under my palms. Then I look to the two women. Alice stares without emotion, but it's Rose who is smiling. "Babies," she says. "Two."

I slowly lower to the bed until I am once again on my back. "How long since…."

"Four months," Alice answers. "You've been weak, but they're growing each day."

"Edward?"

"Tell her," Rose snaps. "She will never stop asking. Would you?"

Alice closes her eyes. "The men are against it."

"Tell me," I say.

"We left him in Alaska." Alice. The words seem difficult for her to say.

"How could you? You've taken me from him?" I yell this. I am ready to fight them so I can go back.

"It's his orders," Rose says.

"He would never send me away…unless…." I remember the lion. "I've betrayed him." A pain spears my heart. Despair blackens my vision.

Rose comes closer and leans over me, putting her hand on one of mine where it still holds my stomach.

"Listen to us, Bella, you have to stay strong. What matters now are the babies. You have to be strong for them. Edward will manage without you."

"He'll die."

"You don't know that. He sent us on. We are to protect you with our lives. His enemies are everywhere. Your part is to keep yourself from pining. To NOT waste away. What matters is that your babies are able to grow until the time of their birth."

"But…he'll never forgive me."

"These babies are Edward's. You must always think of them that way."

I breathed in, her statement holding such pain I could barely think. "He would not…it wasn't him." 

"It was. The babies are innocent." 

"No, no." I cried. "It wasn't him. I don't want these babies. I don't know who's they are. He was evil and feral. He was not my Edward, my love, he was not."

And so they faded from my vision, and so I entered a dark and confusing existence.


	20. Chapter 20

Penitent 20

*Back on track! Thanks for reading.

Life stirs in me. There is no escaping it. I groan as I sit upright. I only rise to use the bucket. I do not wash. I eat just enough to keep the worry in their eyes.

I hate the life inside of me. My own, and the lives that feed off of me even as they refuse to die. Rose cannot hide her desperate need to see these children, to hold them. She hovers over me, my own personal Source now. I treat her poorly, but she doesn't hear or care. I am her surrogate of hope. She is more beautiful near me, as if these things that roll and kick and feast off of me are filling her with vicarious radiance.

My Edward? He cannot live without me. I am so deluded, I feel him near sometimes. But it is cruel. Once, I thought I saw him, outlined against the window in this house on stilts I live in. But when I sat upright, panting, sweating, only the trees blew there as another storm rattled this place.

Betrayal. Desertion. That is what marks us now.

And so I am standing in the ocean. Even I in all my depression cannot resist its call. The water laps against my legs, slams there and foams. Debris fills it like chopped vegetables in soup. They have warned me.

"Watch that you don't slice your feet," Rose calls, giggling in Emmett's grip. They make love all of the time now. He can't get enough of her dead womb. I hate them for this and many things. As I die, as Edward dies without me, they seem to come alive. They wait to take our places, to raise my spawn.

I ignore them, walking like one drunk as I go deeper, submerging my bloated stomach. The prophecy said they would kill me before Edward's eyes. And they have. I gasped with knowing it. This is the worst kind of death, witnessing one's own demise while having to live, having to be held hostage to life growing inside the tomb that is one's very self.

Then it flashes before me, that night in the snow, the Lion having been inside me. Edward saw me there, my legs open. I could see him clearly for a moment, the horror in his eyes, lips, as he drew back. The knowledge of what I'd done…. The babies shifted then. I gripped my stomach. The Lion was in me still.

"Bella!" Alice called waving for me to come ashore. I looked away like a petulant child, back to the horizon, one shade of gray meeting another. I ached. I ached. Oddly for my home. For the life I'd had when I could be alone. I knew so much silence then. And I'd wanted so little. I couldn't imagine that out there, on a far away border, he fought to come to me. For the first time, I felt the niggling of a lighted thought. He would not desert me.

"Bella!" Alice again, in the water this time, headed my way.

The water is speaking to me. It's alive even though the level of pollution staggers. Along this beach the littered bodies of gigantic fish fill the air with the stench of decay. But still it works to clean itself, this great wash-pot of our mistakes.

Edward had told me that day…both. He loved me and through our child the world would start anew. He told me I was the hope. I couldn't believe it. But he'd fought to get here. What would I let his walking away from his life, his fierce battle, his pull to me, his attempt to love me, what would I now allow those things to mean? Would I let this Lion defeat us? Could I rise from this, at least long enough to birth these children, and entrust them to the others who still had hope?

Could I be that selfless? Did I not owe what was left of humanity this last effort, even though I wasn't sure what this contribution would be? Who better to meet the challenge of these unborn than the four who had stayed loyal to my protection?

I turned and looked at them then. As if sensing my epiphany, they were looking back, each of them, arms hanging at their sides, watching me. I turned toward them then and picked my way back to the shore. "I will eat now," I said to Alice, as if I were a queen. But I was not a queen. I was still very much a human being. Yet I had something. I put my hands on my stomach, Rose's eyes following the movement.

I cleared my throat. "It will be different now."

"Yes," Emmett roared, nearly crushing me in his embrace. And Jasper's good mood washed over me. My mouth felt new as it smiled.


	21. Chapter 21

Penitent 21

Alice finds plants in the jungle. She chops and cooks me stew. Each day she works to make sure I eat this strange tropical harvest. Emmett makes sure I exercise. He walks with me along the beach. He lifts his arms toward the sun, and I follow. He bends his knees and squats, and I do the same. Rose comes behind me and uses herself as a wall so I can rest and hold this position. They praise me as I make my body strong.

Jasper keeps me from despair as the days grow unbearably hot, and my skin stretches like the skin of the bloated fish. Emmett clears the beach, but every few days, with the heat, we are right back where we were, in a reptilian graveyard. And sometimes, humans wash up too. The world is recalculating, rumbling, shifting, coughing, and somewhere in its depths there is a sprout of something new. So we hold on.

Alice rubs my stomach with something slick and smelly. Jasper stands in the corner, singing to me. "I know I want to throw this coconut at your head," I try to roar, but it is too stifling, and I am speaking at a whisper.

"Get out with your songs!" I try to yell, yet it's a hiss. I am naked but for the cloth Alice has laid over my lower half. "I hate your music, I hate you all, pathetic creatures singing while I rip open with this animal spawn."

I am always weary after these hateful rants. I don't know why they come upon me now. It's as if all hope tries to leave me, and despair takes its place.

"He has deserted me. My only crime was to love him!" I wail. "After all the promises, the lies." I will sob now, but I am too dehydrated to make good tears, and so I quiet soon enough and let the tremors shake me. Rose tries to soothe me, afraid for the babies, if that is what they are. Alice keeps a grave expression as she rubs her potions into my skin or cajoles me to eat some kind of grotesque spore.

So they sing me to sleep, around my bed. Emmett sings from outside where he keeps watch, my sentinel. And I'm almost asleep when the first ripping pain besieges me. My knees draw up and I roll to my side, and then I am held there by an invisible gigantic fist that squeezes me in its iron fingers. I cannot protest, I cannot breathe. I can only fly through the black tunnel of agony and press my teeth into my lips until I taste my rusty blood.

They are excited, talking amongst themselves, moving, trying to soothe me even as I am dying. For this is death, not life, not birth. This is horror. I want to tell them, beg them to end me, but I cannot form words before the next pain comes. And the next. And the next, and the next, next, next, and it is an ocean, as relentless, as pounding, as unending, as eternal.

They lift me. I cannot push. There is no strength in me. And so this child must find the will to come forth on its own. And so he comes. Like a lion he fights his way out, angry and red. Rose takes him. "He is yours," I say.

The next is slow. Another endless suffering. When he comes, he comes and draws back. And so they lift me, but he is not his brother. It's Jasper who coaxes him with song. And he does come, first the reddish hair, then the reddish face, and after that he slips into this world. He must be encouraged to cry, and when he does, it is not long. He does not show his eyes, but draws into himself and is content. Alice takes him. "He is yours," I say.

"But you must nurse," Alice tells me.

"There is no life in me now," I answer. "My heart is broken."

"Your heart," Alice says tucking a boy in each arm, "is broken so each of them may carry a piece."

They are equally hungry. With the help of the two women I am soon nursing, first one then the other. The angry one is first. He will always be first, this I know. I study him, and I cry. I see a semblance of Edward, oh so evident. He is dark, his hair black, his skin ruddy, his cries a strong bleat, even his sucking at my breast loud and frantic, wild and sloppy. We struggle to connect he is so eager, so insistent. Then finally, he latches on, picks up a mastering rhythm, and I feel the steady demanding pull. His eyes are open. He was born with them open. And he's looking, searching. His gaze settles on me. He sucks and he studies me. The eyes are so dark. They are midnight. He looks like his father, but he is me. That's what I know, and I must help him find that lighter self.

"Rose," I say softly, for he isn't happy at Rose's approach. "You must help him stay in the light."

Rose nods as she takes his flailing hand. His grip is strong and kneading on her finger.

"He is strong beyond reason," I say, but he does not like me talking. He makes an angry threading sound, but he does not stop the frantic sucking.

When the first one is sated, Alice hands me the other. His hair is long and red. His skin, now that he's settled, is pale. His eyes are grayish in color, and he seems to look at me with an old man's wisdom. He is also eager to nurse, but latches on at once, and sucks steadily. He studies me as well, but it is with singular focus. His eyes soon close, and the milk runs into his open mouth as he falls asleep.

When Alice has taken him, I know my body is ripped and torn and sore. I am a husk. What is left in me now is the worst pain, and the sweetest. Edward is here. In these two. They are Edward's. What I could not see in the Lion, what I would not see, I see in the child. There were two conceptions, one dark, one light. They are his.


	22. Chapter 22

Penitent 22

Edward will come to me. He will not abandon his sons. Shame has kept him from me, but I stand on the overlook in this dark and chilly place to which we've journeyed and my eyes scan the charred trees, the skeletons, the debris.

We have left the jungle. One day my guard came to me. "We have to leave," they said. That is what I call them, my guard, Jasper, Alice, Emmett and Rose. They are true to me. They are never confused.

So we have traveled to this place where one can stand and look over the cold broken detritus.

So few wander about now. Some have been made kind by the suffering, some pathetic, some are still fading, close to the end, but some have gone wild. Some kill.

We have walked, the infants strapped on our backs, our legs muscle and bone, our steps silent and endless.

I have bled much but it has ceased now. I am often carried to ensure the milk. That is what they focus on, the food for the new ones. I am the food. But I am mother, and that is something my guards revere. They are tender with me. They care for me with the same devotion they care for the innocents, my lion, my lamb.

There is no struggle for power. We are united. We are singular in our mission. Life.

I know he follows. At some far point he is here.

I feel him in my skin, the prickling that comes, the mood, the quick turn of my head, the movement in the corner of my eye. There is only the wind. But more, I am sure.

I knew his body last. Before that, his soul. But first, his spirit. So I have crawled back to what I knew at first. He is broken.

And I will always forgive him.

I stand there, a blanket wrapped around me. The wind whips my hair around my face. I close my eyes for long times. Something draws near, but I am not afraid. Death has lost its sting.

So when I feel the touch upon my cheeks, my breath hitches, but my eyes stay closed. I do not speak, I wait. I feel.

The sound of someone swallowing pain. A falling near my feet, than a face pressed against my legs as I am gripped in an iron embrace. My hands are fisted in the blanket, my mouth falls open as my breath races, but I do not look. I do not move.

The crying is silent, but I feel the racking, shaking, I am gripped and where the face presses against me, the blanket grows wet.

I do not comfort or condemn. I serve. I serve and stand.

But then, after an hour, when the grip does not ease, but the emotion has run out, and I stand, and he sits, a human base to my statue. Then, my hand untangles from the blanket, and trembling, reaches and finds his hair. As I touch it, I am flooded with relief. And so my hand stays there, until my eyes are opened and my face lowers to look down on him. And I am the sun on this quiet wreck of glory, his hair once red is streaked with black now. My penitent.


	23. Chapter 23

Penitent 23

Jasper found us there. He and Emmett pulled my husband from me. But my husband would not let them bring him to the cabin we shared, but chose to lay there on the cold crop of rock. He was unresponsive.

Yet me they did carry. The babies must eat. And I had no strength in me once my Love was detached from me.

I did not fight or demand. I was not passive, but faithful. Edward would find strength, but he must find it on his own. We were waiting. We were there, but worthiness is the hardest suit one ever puts on, and one must accept it and all of its frightening implications…by choice.

I had done this. I had broken this path with shaking feet. And I could not do it for him.

So I fed my children, the strong one, and the quiet. They were restless, as if sensing the coming storm. The dark one was more still than ever I'd seen him, refusing sleep, kicking his feet and scratching at his own face, once fed refusing to be held or coddled, his eyes so wide. But the quiet one was fretful. I had never had such an open or long view of the back of his tiny red throat.

As I stood at the window, my husband a dark formless shape on the rock, I saw the dark movement in the stark trees. "They are gathering," I said, to only myself. And the others, already deep in their songs, sang louder, and with passion.

For hours they sang. When the sun gave things new definition, we saw the black army in its sick formation, waiting like buzzards to bring us to ruin.

Before I could despair, or worry for my children, I saw him, standing, Edward. Where before I had to wonder if he was still in his clothes, still in the full black coat he wore like armor, now he stood, a foot taller than I remembered, his shoulders broad, his feet far apart, but his balance unmistakably that of a warrior's.

Emmett and Jasper and Alice went to Edward then, standing on each side.

Rose said, "You should take the babies into the bedroom. I'll put you in the closet."

"No closet for me." I gathered my sons and stood by the window where they could see their father's glory. For he was glorious with the sun shining on him. Ebony and gold.

Rose stayed by me. "He's remembered," she whispered, looking where Edward and the others stood, even as Caius flew over the chasm and hovered before Edward, his powerful black limbs, animal and man, stretched out, arms extended, himself in the shape of a horrible winged cross.

"Edward has remembered," I asked, the fear not strong enough to make me run.

"You will see him now…as he is," she whispered, then the piercing song came out of her, and Alice took it up, so high in pitch, so strong and loud.

The song was a challenge, a call to battle, as the black army spread out, many of them flying out of the trees, most of which were in the valley, lower than the outcropping of rock Edward had taken his stand upon. They flew to bring themselves level with him as they filled the air behind their beastly leader.

"We have bitten you, and yet you live. You have fathered spawn in my world. Give them to me, and I'll let you and your mother/woman live," Caius said, his voice heavy and cruel.

"No," Edward answered, one word cold and deadly.

"Then…" Caius charged Edward. Jasper and Emmett closed ranks in front of Edward. Caius fought with arms and legs, talons and fists. He tried to bite. Jasper and Emmett repelled him, pushing and kicking him into his own troops.

Hooting and screaming, these beasts scattered with the force of Caius's scrambling in mid-air as he countered the impetus of Emmett and Jasper's blows. As soon as he found purchase on the bodies of his own army Caius, redoubled his attack. He flew straight for Edward, and this time the army came with him.

So many moved on the three men at once, but my eyes never left Edward, and my children stayed still, so still, as Rose moved close and put her arms around me. Edward was constant movement, retreating ever closer to the window where we stood. He fought with a relentless grace, bare-handed, biting, growling, breaking the beasts into pieces with tremendous displays of strength, shredding their limbs and wings, ripping their throats open, and spitting out the refuse, tearing their arms off, kicking them into immobility, stomping on their chests. He was glorious and fearsome and terrible and wonderful.

It was a dance of death, a gruesome ballet, and Emmett and Jasper, as committed, as fierce, but none quite so brutal and unstoppable as Edward, as the father, as the lover, such a warrior, such a machine of protection and rage.

Rose sang and sang, and then others took it up, and I saw Irina and Tanya and Athena come over the cliff, I saw members of the second circle closing in, the black beasts meshing together, herded onto the land from those who came from behind, and as their monkey feet touched the rocks the cabin was built on, my guard and my husband crushed them without mercy or hesitation, devouring them with vengeance and destruction, until there was not one more perversion left to tear apart.

Then, his chest heaving, his clothes torn, his face streaked with blood and blood and muscle showing through what remained of his clothes, bits of fur and debris sticking to the sweat slicked skin, he turned to me. Edward. He looked at me as if he could not look anywhere else, and the fierceness softened. In his eyes I saw the hope. I saw the love.

Then he allowed himself to see the dark one that I held against me as he sucked on his fist, and kicked his legs. Edward fell to his knees. He slowly moved his head to look at me again. I smiled, and he laughed a little, even as tears streaked the dirt and death on his face. Then his eyes traveled to the lighter one, the little lamb. As if unable to take in anymore, his hands came over his face. His shoulders shook, and I knew he cried, but only long enough to release his joy.


	24. Chapter 24

Penitent 24

The babies were set free. I laid them on the bed in the single bedroom and let them flail and kick their legs. The strong one tried to roll over, struggling and grunting his frustration. Keeping a watchful eye on them, I hurried to prepare myself. I looked for something, my brush. I let my hair down and worked it sleek and smooth. It fell to my waist. I splashed cold water on my cheeks, then changed into a clean blue shirt. Quickly I put the babies into fresh cloth diapers, and pulled clean gowns over them, long fuzzy garments made by Alice from blankets.

I picked them up, first the lion, then the lamb. I turned with haste.

Edward stood in the doorway. He'd bathed outside. I knew cold water didn't phase him. His skin was still wet. He had no shirt and his skin showed the horror of battle. Wounds and bruises covered him, but still his marred chest and shoulders were strong and beautiful. He held something he used as a towel, and rubbed over his wet hair, then tossed it aside and stepped forward, his eyes moving from me to the treasures I held in my arms.

He swallowed, but the shame did not take him. He looked at me. "They are beautiful. You…are beautiful." Such pure, hot fire in his eyes.

One step closed the distance between us. I held the lamb toward him, and his eyes were captured then as he flexed his hands and lifted his arms to hold his son for the first time. When his big hand took hold of the little mite that was his image, he cradled the head and the little bottom, and brought the boy up close.

"Alice is his guard," I say.

He looks to me, then back to his boy, as if this is the most precious, fascinating being he's ever beheld. He lifts the little one to him, smells the soft red hair. "He's a thinker," he says, delighted. "He will listen…and he'll teach," he whispers. The lamb coos at Edward then, and breaks into a smile. "He hears me now," Edwards says, "and his songs will heal many." He kisses the lamb's soft cheeks. Edward has left tears on his son's face, so he cradles him near and gently rubs the tears away with his battered finger. "His name is Amuel." He looks to me then, "Did you know, my love?"

"His name is Amuel," I repeat. "He's a lamb."

Edward kisses the boy again. "That is what he is," he says. "His mother's nature sits in his heart."

After Edward stands there holding his son for a stretch of time, Alice enters, taps Edward's arm and holds her hands out for the boy. "He's Amuel," Edward says beaming at her. She smiles and nods then takes the baby from the room.

Edward takes in a breath and lets it out slow. His gaze is fixed on the dark one in my arms. "The lion," I say, laying him carefully in his father's arms. The boy opens his mouth wide and cries a lusty protest. His arms flail and his strong little legs kick.

"He's more," Edward whispers, hefting his weight. Then, "Oh. Oh." Edward gasps, and the tears come. He takes the dark one to the bed and lays him there, then he kneels, and keeps his hands on the boys stomach and forehead. "Shhh," he says to the little one, "Shhh. Daddy's here. Daddy loves you," he soothes. And slowly the child's crying ebbs, the little lion-heart stills. He studies his father with his dark angry eyes.

"He came later," Edward says, but it's a question.

"Yes," I say. I know myself they were conceived at two different times by the same father in different states of evolution.

"There is no shame in him," I warn Edward, knowing where he will go. "He is only beauty. He is only love. He's innocent…as are you."

"I am not innocent," he tells me through his teeth, such regret in his expression, in his voice.

My hand on his shoulder, on his skin, and beneath my touch he trembles. "But I shall bless him. I promise I shall not blame him. Only myself."

"No," I am firm. "If you don't forgive yourself, he'll suffer."

"Oh, my heart," he says to me. "Oh, my Heart, I cannot ever be worthy."

My other hand rests on his back. I am relieved to touch the bruises there, the bites, the wounds. "My protector," I whisper, "my life."

Edward's arm comes around me then, and he crushes his face against my stomach. I put my hands in his hair, smoothing the black and red locks. After a moment, one arm tight around me, the other hand still on the lion's stomach, he looks up at me, and I see the burning struggle. "I took you…."

"No. I gave myself."

He held the emotion in, but I could feel it coiled in his heaving chest as his eyes stayed on me. "I went mad. I thought you rejected me. I let the darkness take me."

"I didn't reject you. It's only ever you I want." I pulled on his hair then, and moved his head a bit as I worked my hands through his thick hair.

"I changed. I'm changing still. Without you…I wandered. I fought. I killed. Then I trailed you, and I stayed near. But I couldn't reveal myself. I couldn't bring my infected ruined self near you. So I worked the perimeter wherever you were. I was vigilant. I was a beast, but with you near I remembered, and I lived for something more than the infection. And as my sons grew in you…my regret was never greater than my duty. If you want me to go away, I will go. The power will always be yours, my Bella. Should you allow me to stay I will never make a decision you can't bless."

"You are a lion. My protector. Your nature is in his heart. He will need you to temper his decisions. He is a man of action. A warrior. He is brave, but without our tender guidance he will be cruel. He has courage. He will lead and many will follow. He will be strong, decisive. He is a hero. His name is Zane." Me.

Edward picks up the boy who has fallen asleep. He grunts as Edward shifts him in his arms. "We will guide him," he whispers. "I will walk strong so he has a path that's clear. I give him my heart, not my regret. He is my pride."

Rose is there, and Edward hands his son to her.

She closes the door on the way out. We look at one another. "I have so much to ask forgiveness for," he begins, "for the rest of my life…."

Shhh," I tell him, much as he told our son moments before. I take the hem of my shirt in my hands and lift it over my head. My shoes follow, then my pants. He looks at me, throat bobbing, then looks away, then back again, eyes trailing over my body.

I step so close, my hands on his chest, moving over his abdomen. "Brave warrior," I say low. "Strength and steal. Protecting me. And our sons."

He breathes through his mouth, uneven, his eyes on mine, his lids sliding closed as he flexes his empty hands.

"Beautiful husband. Only for me. I am your lover, your gift. You are my prize." I step around him, my hands dragging over him, tender on his wounds, ghosting over his needy flesh. I stop before him and work on the closure to his pants. He toes off his boots. I slide the pants away until he is naked for me.

I take his hands and lead him two steps to the bed. Slowly and fluidly we climb beneath the quilts and adjust ourselves face to face. He pulls me to him at once. "Do not fear me," he whispers. "I will stop…I will go. You have all the power. I surrender to you, my love. Only do not fear me. My strength is for you."

My hands are small and white against his skin as I run my hand over his shoulder and down his arm. He watches my breasts, my curved waist, my round hips. "My beauty," he whispers, lust driving the uncertainty from his eyes. "How I've ached…."

"Ache no more," I say, my hand moving boldly over his member and the sac beneath. It's this I love, this freedom to touch him where no one else dares. "You are mine," I say. And I take his hand and place it on my breast, squeezing my hand over his, "and such a man must surely know what to do…how to please me. Don't hold back. Be as fierce with me as you were in battle."

He shakes his head. "No."

"Yes. That fierce. Love will teach you. You are more now, and I have known both sides, but now, let them come together. Let them make peace. I want it all."

I laid back then, and opened my legs, running my hands from my center over my mound, my flat stomach, my torso and breasts to my collar bones where my fingers splay delicately.

"Oh…beauty," he whispers, bringing his mouth to my panting, waiting mouth. His hot wet lips move against mine as his tongue seeks my tongue. His lips work to coax my mouth to frenzy.

It has been too long since I have known this joy, this ecstasy. I roll my hips so my center is against him. We push into one another. He moves so energetically he pushes into me. We groan together. "I can't…I must…" he rambles, kissing me everywhere he can reach, kneading my breasts, running his hands over my ribs, to my hip, his palm grinding against that jutting bone, to the place where we are joined, his fingers feeling me there, rubbing me to release, and I explode as my legs moved over his hips.

It goes on and on, and he thrusts into me until he shudders after me, and brings me back up to shatter once again.

"We belong together," I whisper. "Nothing…nothing changes that," I say. "I am yours. Without you, I am torn in two."

.

"Yes," he agrees. "I shall never leave you again. I thought it was the right thing. I was so wrong. So wrong. Thank you for your love. Thank you for our sons."


	25. Chapter 25

Penitent 25

Edward addresses the others. I stand in the circle of his long, scarred arm. How I have tended him, each wound, each nick. How I have examined each bruise, each mark and laid my hands upon them and mastered them with love.

We stand on the rock where he'd battled so valiantly. The first and second circles are scattered, listening. Rose holds Zane. Alice rocks Amuel.

"We shall go forth in the morning," Edward says, his voice confident, but gentle. "Back to the city, to the place called St. James. Bella is drawn there. She desires a settled life so our sons can grow strong. We will take that place and bring newness. From there we shall establish ourselves, and build a place where we can rest, and reign. There we will start to heal. And others shall find shelter in our company."

The others move, separate as a stranger has entered their ranks. They part to allow her to pass as she makes her way to us. She is familiar, her dark hair cut blunt as though sawed off at the ends with a knife. She is a traveler, dressed for mobility, the wear of miles on her clothes. She is Kate.

She walks close. At twenty paces she stops and rolls the knapsack from her back, settling it by her booted feet. "I have returned from grieving him," she says.

Edward calls Tanya forward. She moves beside Kate and eyes her warily. "I grieve him still," Tanya says.

"It is my crime. No one else's." Edward. "I punished him in arrogance, as if…."

"It was Caius who took his head," Kate says.

"Yes," Edward says. "I examined him myself. I was tempted there, and if Bella had not disturbed me…."

"We have killed Caius. It's time to move from this," Tanya says.

"I have been alone," Kate.

"My crime again." Edward.

"I've heard the songs about the children. And long nights I have walked the perimeters with you," she addressed Edward, "even though we stayed apart." Kate.

"I knew you walked with me. An outcast and a monster."

"And which am I?" Kate.

"The outcast." Edward.

"She may come in. If you see the monster in yourself we can all have hope." Tanya.

Edward's arm grew tighter around me. I knew his hope was in this love he would not grow deaf to again.

Kate and Tanya turned and placed a hand on one another's shoulders. "We are sisters," Kate said.

"We are sisters," Tanya concurred.

We would head out for the city in the morning. Edward and I were eager to be alone. It would be a time before we could be together again. And so we retired as soon as our children were safe with their guards. We undressed and made a nest of our bed, settling in, skin on skin. "My Bella," he spoke to me, dragging his lips over my flesh as I hissed and writhed beneath him.

"Feel me," I whispered, "feel everything." I bowed my body from the bed, my chest rising toward him as he suckled my breasts, tasting the milk that his sons thrived on. Warm kisses on my stomach, the place where his children had grown, the entrance to this sacred place, his fingers finding all of the secrets of my body, my aching flesh, my hungry heart, the warmth of my wet satin folds. "Take me," I pled.

He hovered over me, taking himself in his hand. "There is nothing like this," he told me. "Here, I am home." He pushed into me then.

"As far as you can," I say.

"I'm all the way in. All the way," he pants.

I dig my heels into the bed and lift my hips. It's all I can do not to scream as he squeezes into my tight passage. I have a song for him, and the words are in my head, but I can not utter them aloud, they are the chant of my heart, the secret inner litany that drives my excitement even when I can't see him, can't feast my hands with the feel of him. So long I was denied as he hovered on my periphery, his monster self, his howling self, afraid, unable to face our love.

But now, in this moment, I feel him dragging in and out of me, in and out, long strokes, delirium and joy, warm and strong, beauty in my hands, a feast of love and desire and lust and lust as I cry to him—my lover—my yes.


	26. Chapter 26

Penitent 26

We traveled for long hours. We walked through the mountains. Edward led. He kept Zane on his back. The infant loved to have his legs free so he could kick in time to his father's long strides. When Edward sensed any kind of danger or uncertainty, he pulled the sling he'd made from a blanket around to his chest and held the infant close. Jasper calmed the baby to keep him from protesting the restrictive contact. Zane did not care to be coddled, and would fight against too much handling. The only time he was content to be babied was when he nursed, and nurse he did, always too eager, as if he resented the time it took to concentrate on feeding, as if he could not make peace with his need. And that frantic distraction, his own inward battle, allowed me the precious minutes of tenderness.

He quickly learned to listen to Edward. When Edward would tell him to hush, he would do so, as if excited by what was coming. He would strain to see around him, appearing frustrated that he couldn't manipulate his legs to strike a warrior's pose ready for battle. I had to remind Edward to share the load with Rose. Zane couldn't always be with his father, as Edward had to hunt. I knew her arms ached to hold him, even though he was miserable to embrace. I explained to Edward that Zane needed to stay submissive to our leading. By not being allowed to insist on his preferences in travel, he was challenged to obey. It was that, and other things, we understood he would always struggle with.

Amuel spent time between myself and Alice. Alice only spelled me to save the milk. We both knew I found it hard to part with my lamb. He was curious, but contented to be bundled and transported by whatever means. He only cried when hungry, and then just to announce the fact. He was easily appeased, reasonable beyond my expectations.

As Edward charted our course he would confer with me. He would tell me the best way to go, as he'd traveled far in his tortured wonderings as the Lion. But now, to live up to his promise to refrain from decisions I could not bless, he carefully explained, yet again, the reasons for taking this trail or that. "Edward," I said, "I trust you. I know nothing of travel. You don't need my approval."

"Yes, Love, I do indeed need your approval."

"Not on such matters. If it is a decision in which I feel justice is in the balance, I will not hesitate to give an opinion, but on these matters…trust yourself."

So we locked eyes as he thought over my words.

"Kate is much more astute about the lay of these mountains," I reminded him. Two birds. One stone. He approached her then, and she was a great help to him.

On the second week, Edward killed a man. Worse, he did so with Zane packed on his back. We were in a wooded area. Emmett had gone ahead as was his wont, checking the trees, clearing the path of danger. But this man lived in a tree, in its broad trunk. Neither Emmett nor Edward had sensed him so near. The fellow waited for Edward's approach and attacked from the doorway of his abode. Edward's instinct, made more deadly with the baby threatened, was to raise the stick he carried and strike a deadly blow to the side of the man's head.

We gathered around him then. When I put my hand on his arm, I felt him tense and close himself from my comfort. He was only worried about protecting us, so I submitted while he gave orders and reassured himself there were no others laying in wait. After that, he made the decision to camp for the night. I knew he would want to go off and brood. I feared this more than any attacker. We were too soon reunited for me to be able to bear him closing himself from me.

Hours later, with the babies fed and guarded, I walked the short path to the nearby lake. Edward sat on the bank, looking over the tranquil scene. His hair had grown so long and wild, but it only heightened his beauty, dark as it was, streaked with the red, such a contrast, like fire, true fire where something consumes and something dies.

I stood beside him, but he did not speak. Starting with my shoes, I slowly shed my clothes. He did not do more than look, but his eyes on me brought comfort and excitement. I felt the fleeting touch of his fingers on my thigh as I moved a few steps forward into the water. When it soaked the tips of my long hair I turned to face him. "Come to me," I said.

He hadn't moved, but watched me, his feet together, but his knees open, his elbows resting on them, his strong hands at ease.

I knew it gave him pleasure to see me so free and bold in the pale twilight.

He stood and slowly worked at the buttons of his shirt. He shrugged that off, and the t-shirt beneath. His muscles moved in ways that held my attention like no other's. The scars of battle were still visible, some would never fade, nor would their honor. He discarded shoes and pants, and was naked now, his legs strong, his steps so sure as he slowly made his way toward me, his member ready to spear me.

The waters fanned against his steady approach, parting for him like my legs when he put his arms around me and easily picked me up. I wrapped myself around him as he embedded his flesh into mine.

"My protector," I whispered. "My strong angel, each wound, each scar gives me so much pride."

And it was those words which brought us to release without movement, without the need of anything more than the undressing. The joining. The knowing. We are one.


	27. Chapter 27

Penitent 27

I am weary. Travel tires me. The babies eat to amuse themselves, to comfort themselves over the long miles. And I do not eat enough. Tiredness takes my appetite. Edward insists I let him carry me. From him to Emmett to Jasper. That is his plan. But I am resistant. I fear it looks weak and indulgent. We are all struggling. Yet only I am a breeder.

He is angry when I say this. "You cheapen what you are," he scolds.

"I was being sarcastic. Don't be angry. I'm just tired."

He shakes his dark head, his beard has grown in thick. He trims it, but it is so dark. His eyes burn all the more. "I was too sharp, my love. Let me hold you then. Just me. It will give me energy to feel you against me."

"Liar," I tease. "It's not your strength I doubt."

"It's for a day. Take one day of ease. Let me give you that. You have given me so much."

I smile then. "How can I resist you? Your beauty makes me weak."

He laughs. "Your eyes are weary then. I know that now."

So he carries me on his back. I cling there like a monkey. All the while we laugh and move in hope. He sings to me, so low I can barely hear, but I feel it in his back and chest. A song of love. His steps keep the beat. The guard walks beside him, spread out, the rest of the first beyond that, the second circle further still. Emmett no longer trusts the trees. They have too many secrets, he says.

Rose totes Zane. Alice, Amuel. As my breasts rub against Edward's back, my milk comes. We must stop often so I can nurse.

"I smell like a baby," Edward teases. "There's no ignoring your bounty, woman. Or your warmth." He looks at me with appreciation. I am only beautiful with him.

That night, we sleep in the open. The air grows crisp, even down this low. "We shall hit the town tomorrow," he says, our babies between us.

"Are you worried?" I lay on my side, my three men in my line of vision. The two are like their father. He would say how he senses my presence in their hearts.

"I fear nothing for myself. Only you. I fear you." He smiles.

I return the loving look. I want him. I always want him. I am never too tired to feel him inside, to give him pleasure, to feel his surrender.

"There is no man like you," I whisper, "not for me. Not for this world."

"You are too sympathetic." He reaches over the sleeping infants and caresses my breast.

"I speak true. You are everything a young girl imagines as she cleans a lonely church. You are more than her greatest idea of what a man might be. Do you know this?"

"If you say so." He draws his hand back, tucks it beneath his face and grins.

"I say so. Am I a liar?" I arch my brow.

"Now you bait me. You are not a liar, but you are loyal to a fault."

"And where is the fault? What should I correct?'

"I like you this way. Correct nothing. But me when I need it, of course."

"If love has blinded me, I would stay in this blindness forever. I can see no other. Only you."

In the morning, while the mist still sits on the ground, he lifts my cover and crawls in behind me. This puts him on the ground, but he doesn't mind. He breathes against my neck, and my eyes have just opened then rolled closed again he inspires such lust.

The babies still sleep. The camp is quiet. His hand presses on my stomach, then lowers to my arousal. He presses me there and moans in my ear, kissing me there, knowing how it drives me to frenzy. His mouth is so warm. He licks me there. He sucks me there as his fingers move over me, then in me. I press against his hardened self, I reach back and move my hand over him, grip him there, and his hot breath sounds like thunder in my ear as I spiral to release, and stay suspended, even as I grip him and he follows.

For long moments we stay clenched together. His member softens. And I sigh. We sleep again, for minutes, for an hour. The infants stir us awake, and I pull Amuel to me first and let him latch on to my breast. Edward has risen, and taken Zane with him as he goes to the nearby stream. He cleans the boy there, I know. Already he teaches him not to fear the water. But there is no fear in Zane. Teaching him fear will be our job. Just enough to keep him alive. We will never drown his spirit.

It is another day, and Edward again insists on carrying me along. I can't resist him, for soon we will be in a town, and then all playfulness will be tucked away.


	28. Chapter 28

Penitent 28

We walk slow, but with purpose. The town is a small rural main street, already decaying before the ruin the end brought. But now, it is empty of inhabitants it seems as we walk along its chipped and cracked street.

Word spray painted on the side of an empty hardware store, "despair."

I walk behind Edward. Further out the guard walks point on our left and right. Emmett runs along, eager to find the trouble and ferret it into the open. The babies are tied to me, Amuel on my front and Zane on my back. I have insisted. That is why Edward walks so near, ready to fight, ready to kill. They will protect me, as if I am the pod of life, the hope. Edward will protect me for many reasons, because we are one.

When Zane catches glimpse of the others, I feel it in the excitement he displays, kicking his feet, waving his arms. But he's silent. He knows. Amuel is wrapped tight. But his eyes are open. Like all of us, he waits.

Emmett whistles, and it is all language to them. Edward moves us from the center, nearer the buildings now that he knows they are clear. When we find one that is large enough, he pulls us in there. "Stay here," he says, moving back outside. They have decided to camp in this place.

"Where have they all gone?" I say to my babies. Had they congregated in the cities looking for provisions?

Edward enters then, excited. "It's just us. We'll sleep with a roof over our heads tonight."

He quickly unrolls the blankets from his pack. Then he takes Zane from the sling and lays him down first. The child immediately tries to roll over, nearly succeeding but for the arm that folds beneath his chest and frustrates him.

Then Edward unfolds Amuel from the blanket, and lays him beside his brother. Amuel kicks his feet as he watches his animated sibling.

Edward unties the contraption I've fashioned around me to hold the twins. When I am free he pulls me to him and hugs me tightly. "Are you worn out?"

I kiss him then for a sweet moment. He pulls back and looks at me. Already Zane is starting to grunt, thinking of food. We laugh at that, and Edward finds a chair I can sit on while I nurse. "What a luxury a real chair is," I tell him.

Of course he takes this personally. "You have had it too hard, trying to care for babies in these conditions."

"No, that's not what I meant," I chide him. "Just feeling grateful."

"I would give you the world. I will someday," he says solemnly, all the dark hair seeming to heighten his tenderness it is such a contrast to his appearance. Though there is kindness in his eyes, were I an enemy, I would fear him on sight. The strength in him, his shoulders alone, his arms, but more the dark wild hair, the swarthiness in his complexion, his heavy dark brows, the gravity in his eyes when he senses a threat, and the beard he trims which grows heavy overnight, so dark. He is beautiful and frightening; certainly someone who's physicality inspires respect.

He has the beauty that someone of a mixed race might have, a unique blend of two cultures making something fresh and unique. I know he would not include the infection in such an assessment. He sees nothing good in this darker evolution of himself. But he is wrong. The contrast in him is what has worked such a compelling difference in his character. His new sense of brokenness has given him a power tempered with humility.

He knows he is different. He knows he has the potential to be a devil. He feels he unleashed that on me. That was him, without control, he would say. But I would differ. That was him without hope in himself. In us. When he gave up…he gave in.

In the morning we press on. There is no reason to hurry, but there is less reason to linger. We are looking at this world, assessing. We see no life. The last alive person we'd seen, Edward killed.

We pass deserted farmhouses, fields gone to ruin, the landscape a giant still life.

We gather what we can find, what we can carry. There are vehicles, but we do not use them. There are train tracks, but nothing runs on them. Infection. "Where are the bodies?" I ask. Not here. Not anywhere we see.


	29. Chapter 29

Penitent 29

We have spent the night in one deserted town after another. We have hit a main road, a highway. For hours we have walked along, scaring up crows at one point, large inky black birds which have left us unsettled as they've come too close, squawking at us, reaching for our heads with wicked talons. It is what they represent-the fallen ones, that leaves us alarmed. Emmett takes several of them out with a sling he's fashioned. He never misses, but then they are so large, so close together.

Edward hits them with his stick, his blows just as efficient. With each swing he gets a kill, sometimes two.

Alice and Rose take care that none land on the babies, or close to me at all. Zane is frantic from their attempts to wing close, from their furious calls. He seems to be trying to answer them in some crude way. He grows so energetic that Rose must take him. Her strength is almost no match for his agitation. When he squirms he is hard to hold onto, and must be carried in a sling. "He would fly at them…or with them," she says.

The crows badger us all morning long, never learning from the littered black and bloody trail that lengthens behind us.

"The infection draws them," Edward tells me. "They are hungry, and it's in me, it's in us all to some degree."

"Even the others?"

"Watch how they spread over us, not preferring one over the other. They sense it. The environment has tainted us."

"Will we die?"

"We have never died before, but then, this is a life we've not known on many levels."

"You're avoiding the question," I asked, my short steps not enough to keep abreast of him."

He slowed then, lifted Amuel from my arms. "We do not die easy. Garrett was destroyed. So we learn. You know you've become more like me. The children…we do not yet know. But one thing is clear…we are more hearty than humanity has proven to be. We have survived."

"Did you destroy Garrett?"

I had seen him that night, swinging from Garret.

"I am responsible."

"But did you do the actual…."

"It was done because of what I allowed. But not directly by my hand, tainted as it's become.

"I spoke the truth to you," he paused to strike at the birds, bringing down three, "when I said I was cutting him down. I was in a rage….those who have fallen feed…as you saw them do with me in battle. They pile on and…."

"We will not speak of it ever again," I say. It is as if the conversation draws the crows more forcefully than ever.

"I let his blood be upon me," he says, grunting as he swings his stick with fury and speed. The birds rain down then. I put my hands over my head as they fall around me. Then, "Sing," Edward commands, and the guard sings, at once, in harmony, loud and clear, and the birds seem to answer it, squawking louder than before, as if they call others, and they multiply into a black roof of feathers and talons and noise.

Rose had dropped to one knee to shelter Zane with her body. "Bella," she calls to me, for the baby has become so frenzied, he makes a horrible sound, his eyes rolling back in his head, a crescent of white foam at the corner of his mouth. He twitches and writhes, and she lays him on the ground and throws herself over him.

I don't know what to do. Edward is battling, as are all of the guard. Only Alice, who is also on the ground, shielding Amuel. "Bring him to me," I cry to her.

She runs to where we are, crouching low to keep herself curved over the baby. The others fight, and sing louder. I take Amuel as Alice strikes at any of the crows who dare to drop too close. I lay him beside Zane. Zane twitches still, but with less violence. In less then a minute, he does not twitch at all, and I find his soul in his eyes once more as he looks at me, an other-worldly look. I wipe at his mouth and speak his name, but it is Amuel, turned now on his side, his small fists moving against his brother's arm.

The crows are rising. I can feel their heavy shadows lifting from us. Zane has turned toward his brother. They look upon one another's faces, and their fists touch as they move their arms in the way of infants.

Edward's shadow falls upon us now. I do not have to look. "Amuel is his light. It is not you to such a degree…it is not me…it's Amuel."

That night we sit under a tree wrapped in one another's embrace. Our sons lay side by side two feet away. "Then they must always stay together," I say to Edward.

"They already know their need of one another. It's a unity. You would call it a bond."

"Will they always agree?"

Edward pulled me as close to him as possible. "They will often not agree. They will work from two different perspectives. But they will love one another fiercely."

I put my hand against his soft beard. His eyes glitter with emotion for me, for our sons. "We were meant to be. They…are meant to be."

He kisses me so slowly, with reverence. His hand also cups my cheek. "Nothing that comes from you can be bad," he whispers. "Love is the strongest force. No matter how high evil rears its screaming head…love is an unstoppable river. Everything else is temporary. Everything else self-destructs."

"Are you betting on our sons?" Me.

He strokes over the side of my hair, all the way to its tips, his hand caressing my breast. "I'm betting on love."


	30. Chapter 30

Penitent 30

We cross a six-lane bridge, heavy with fanning steel girders. An architect's vision grown, rusty and arthritic with age and use that has outlived them all. The wind sends music through its girders, each corrosive hole a scarred mouth sounding an eerie note. The crows fly higher now, perching in the growing jungle gym of city life.

We have taught them to be wary. "It is not the infection alone they follow," Jasper says as we walk, "it's the sweetness that still reigns in our blood."

Edward smiles at me. It's as he said, the love. Even the crows are drawn to it, though they do not know why. I see them differently then. Yes, death is everywhere, though the bodies we now see strewn as we approach the city are not commensurate to the missing population.

The crows feed there, but they are drawn to us still, as if we are rare. And we are.

Edward takes wide steps to the side of the bridge and hops onto the top of the guard rail and walks there, moving easily around cables. Ahead, Emmett has climbed to the top of the structure to take the view from a crow's nest's height. He whistles a series of notes then, standing silent for a moment, taking in the scene before he climbs swiftly back to the ground. If he proceeds, and he does, we follow.

We trudge through the vacant, silent streets. The behemoth sits abandoned, its bloated infrastructure swelling and already exploded, starting the slow descent into decay.

What mattered as the city felt itself failing, as it no longer responded to the commands, and frail illusion of security?

We walked into its carcass, looking for its dead heart—St. James.

There were long grays blocks separating us from the church, its gray stone spires that heard all human anguish, its windows seeing the world through stained glass, and the bell tower rising up like a voice saying, 'I told you so.'

So we walked along the bones of chained link fences and broken cement, the muscle and sinew of grimy edifice, along the blind windows without spirit or light, and our tread echoed in the voiceless city that did not cry or breathe.

I watched my husband, and I gathered my Amuel, my heart, and I felt the frantic weight of my Zane, my force, my strength at my back, and so I was hemmed in. By hope.


	31. Chapter 31

Penitent 31

Debris had gathered before the double wooden doors of St. James. "Hello, old friend," I whispered as we stood there, Edward holding Zane, myself embracing Amuel, the guard around us, the second circle fanned out in all directions exploring.

"I prefer the theatre," Rose said.

"In its day…the theatre had nothing on St. James," Jasper said.

"Especially for Edward," Alice sang.

Edward smiled at me. Then he leaned in for a kiss. Zane kicked with his usual fury as he and Amuel briefly touched.

"They are match and tinder," Jasper said of the two boys.

"I thought you meant Edward and Bella," Alice teased.

"Well," Jasper said, "some things go without saying."

Emmett laughed especially loudly. It was good to be light-hearted after so many days of gravity. It was short-lived as the church before us waited.

Emmett pulled the door wide. The dark air of the church's foyer hit us in the face as we entered. Here there was incense and wine, incantation and chanting, but that was only on the wind. Now there was emptiness and silence. And rot. The skeleton of an animal was here, as if he'd been trapped and perished in search of an exit from the refuge that could not, that did not trap one indefinitely. Escape was no longer through the doors, but to another world entirely.

But here is where it began…the love. Here is where I first saw him and knew.

Our footsteps are loud in this place as we walk the center isle, like brides and grooms, like the grieving, like penitents.

I look past the pulpit to the tall golden altar. I see the glass holy of holies where the chalice sits. I do not see its glint, so much as I know it is there, beyond the quiet dust, a presence with sad eyes that looks out at this scene, this theatre where no one gathers to hear its story, to partake in oneness, to celebrate a victory which is now complete. It is finished.

"We are new actors on an old stage," I whisper. But the others have heard me. Every sound here is amplified, though no one listened in the old order.

Father Charles is no longer here. Like the others he is gone, a memory. My old room, my old world, now looks so small and broken. Why did I think it was enough? Why didn't I clean the statuary from the hall? Why did I not try to brighten it with cast off vestments, or at least some drawings upon the soft plaster walls?

Edward and I move into the rectory. There must be rooms for the boys. For days we clean and arrange. We and the guard are busy here, as if preparing for a great revival, or the pope himself to arrive.

The first night we are bathed and happy. Just the thought of being together in a soft bed is enough to make us hurry through the care of our sons. Emmett carries two beds from the nursery in the church. They are placed side by side so Zane can feel the closeness of Amuel, but not injure him in his eagerness. The infants are soon cleaned and wrapped in one another's proximity as they sleep. Edward pulls me from the room. I wear a filmy white vestment, so at home amongst these things.

Edward wears only a pair of jeans brought to him by Alice and Jasper who had raided what was once a free used clothing store. And so, for us, it still fulfills its purpose.

Edward is eager as he kisses my lips, over my cheeks, mumbling, "So soft," my neck, "delicate," my shoulders, "like cream."

"I love this thin garment…this angel dress." He kisses my breasts, "Your nipples…." Groaning as he licks against me, and I feel the milk come, that's all it takes, but no matter to him, he likes that too, licking me again.

His hands glide over me as if he is the potter to my clay, "so womanly," he mutters, his hands, strong cups moving over, "these curves."

He kisses my lips yet again, so hot and sweet, his tongue, so deep, so wanting. "I would take you to the church and lay you down on the white cloths," husky voice, breathing deep. "You would yell my name…echoing screams off the vaulted ceilings."

Here on our white bed, it is almost enough. I no longer know my surroundings.

"Only you," he whispers, "your hot," push, "weeping," push, "slick grip on me," he pushes in again and again, until we float, we rise.

"Oh my love," he rolls us onto our sides, his penis flaccid as it slides free of me. His large, strong hand pushes the small of my back so my mound presses against him, and our thighs touch, and I feel his thudding heart against my thudding heart.

"Can it be like this?" he asks me, wonder in his voice.

"It is…this."

"Is it the same for you? For me…it shatters through me and I'm healed…each time."

I kiss his shapely lips, so beautiful as I press my face so close to his. "It's the same, though I wouldn't have known how to say it so…."

"You are the heart of every poem in me now. Just you."

"I live for this…our sons…and this…with you."

"It is the same for me," he says, his hand on my check, thumb on my lips. "I adore you, my Bella."

So this love is a fire against the empty streets, the silent blowing. "I wonder," I ask him, "if this was anything close to life," I say as we two look around. Our sons are back in the manse under the watchful eye of the guard. We walk together now, we two, surveying the city blocks that surround us like a cement forest.

"I've known another way, but I am not just human." His steps are strong, but he tempers them in length and speed, for me.

He is taller, and such a dark beauty. I never tire of looking at him, the shape of his brow, the intensity of his eyes, his body, the animation of his face, the elegance of his voice, just his hands and the way they move, the way they coax response from me when he speaks, when he loves, their skill in battle, the way he holds our sons, so many things. My heart is full, even as I am sad, even as I see the absence of…a race.

We are near the place where he'd lived, where he took me in another's room, the man he'd killed, the man who's name he'd taken.

"There is movement ahead," he said, moving me slightly behind him. He kept walking forward, but I felt the tension in his body, the hum of being alert.

She stepped from between two buildings. Kate.

She wore a small, tight jacket. The roundness of her belly evident. We had not seen her for weeks. She had left us during the journey here. Others left, then returned. Edward did not rule them as he had before the time when his darkness manifested. They were free to go or stay as their conscience dictated.

"With child," he said, his eyes on her belly.

"Yes," she answered. "I've taken up with a man. Back…in my wanderings."

"Has he perished?" he asked.

"No. He grows stronger." She was proud.

Edward nodded.

"It's the same with me," I said. Then to Edward, "Is it just the union?"

"It's more," he answered. "It's as I told you…love. When we unite, we are healed. We are no longer sterile. You are no longer dying. But there must be love."

"Do you bless me?" Kate asked, fierce as ever in her stance.

Edward's eyes stayed glued to her stomach for a moment, then slowly he smiled. "Bring your husband to our circle. He should meet your family, don't you think?"


	32. Chapter 32

Penitent 32

Edward and I, along with the guard, took over the church, making it our headquarters. The second circle worked on the old theatre. Between the two places our foot soldiers set up a perimeter. They went through each building, loading supplies into one of the two designated headquarters.

We found several humans, all in various stages of illness. Three were assigned as mates to the single people, one man, two women, who did not already have a partner. This match-making was carried out by Jasper and Alice. Alice assessed attraction, Jasper personality and mood. The couples were then assigned to one another. The fit were to begin their relationships by caring for their sick partners. This was their supreme test until the joining could be performed.

The rest of the infected were made comfortable as there was no ultimate cure. One was contained as the infection had so darkened his mind he was intent only on killing.

Humanity had been taken, through death or bondage, by the fallen. They had gleaned them from the streets, fed on their carcasses. If there was any justice for them, it would not happen in this world. Here their time was over.

I heard Jasper say, "They were defeated by the door they had unlocked and left unguarded." But for me, it was not so simple.

The church was cluttered with filth. We spread over it with the industry of ants on an abandoned picnic site. Edward worked and directed. There was scaffolding in the basement, but we didn't use it. Edward's people were so adept, so immune to heights, they had no need of it. Instead they scaled walls, able to find purchase on the slightest ridge of paint, on a gilded knob, on the barest jut of trim, even when they were back-bent, at an angle that invited gravity to pull them hurtling to the tile below.

"When you've grown up knowing an aerial view as a part of what is normal…you see things…we see things differently. We do not fear what we know. And we know high places," Jasper assured me.

They started at the ceiling, the tip of the central dome. Where there were chunks of plaster missing, these were filled in, then smoothed. They left white spaces like clouds in the frescoes and carefully painted patterns that graced these tall bowls of beauty, but those would be fixed later, Edward informed me. Their first concern was to restore the structure.

They piled and hauled rubble for days. Then they scrubbed and polished and brought back to luster the gilded, the inlaid, the porticoed. The church took on a freshness as the grime was wiped away and thrown down the sewer. Its face was washed, its scars and wounds laid bare so they could be assessed and dressed.

I was touched by Edward's need to restore rather than build. His love had done that with me. His love made me new.

I worked in the manse, but my main concern was providing Zane and Amuel a stable environment. Amuel seemed to thrive as I introduced a schedule. But Zane grew even more stubborn and restless. Edward would often bundle the lion on his back while he worked. I had to learn to release him to his father and trust Edward had the paternal skill to keep our son safe in the middle of refurbishment.

Often Rose would take Zane and walk with him while she sang. He had liked the travel in that it was constant movement. He hardly knew how to surrender to the stillness of rectory life. He seemed to need the excitement of upheaval. Trouble drew him.

But Amuel adapted. He was content to watch me wrestle with furniture that had been in same place so long it had rooted itself to the floor. He sneezed as I dusted books. He laughed when I danced around him. He loved my terrible singing, but not so much as when Edward would teach him the notes and the words that he'd brought with him from the other world. Amuel and Zane were spell bound when Edward shared those sounds. How much of their father was in them. I knew it in those times.

Often I would take Amuel on a journey through the church's labyrinths. There was not so many, but enough that we could walk for an hour. And I knew that the sewers hooked up to the manhole cover right outside the church's facade, and through that sewer one could find her way into the rectory pantry door that Edward had strengthened with a steel lock. I remembered what Jasper had said about humanity's demise…a door left open…unguarded. I shook off such a thought and wondered how it had pierced my joy.

So I checked the pantry door many times a day, the lock shiny and secure. And I chided myself for such an obsession.

I and my lamb avoided the hub-bub of refurbishment. One day I took him to the basement room I had once occupied, the heart of my small world before Edward. Before life.

In that room was a rocking chair. I sat with Amuel, and rocked in the solitude. We were both just starting to doze when I heard footsteps in the winding hall outside.

"Who is there?" I asked. There was no answer, so I stood, laid Amuel on the floor, and went to the open door. "Is someone out here?"

I thought it an apparition, the figure hunched in the corner. "Father?" I breathed.

He straightened from the wall, and held himself straight. His clothes were filthy and worn, but his dark eyes, was it Father Charles?

He stepped a bit closer, and I wasn't sure. "You…are no priest," I said before I knew.

He flew toward me, pinning me to the wall. I squirmed against him. "You…" his breath was foul, his fingers dug into my flesh. I could hear Amuel's wail from behind me in the room.

The beast drew close to my face and growled loudly. His teeth so yellow, gums so red. Sound ear-splitting. I was terrified for my son.

He moved a hand up to my neck. He was…something fallen. He pushed against my throat. "I cannot let him," I thought, "I cannot lose my son."

I kicked out, frantically kicked as he tried to pin my legs, and easily succeeded. My hands clawed at his face, scratched at his eyes. My vision darkened, and I struck him, ripped at his hair.

There was a sound, a piercing, crystal sound, the highest note, held, a bell-like single ringing.

The hands were ripped away. The creature rolled with another—Edward. Edward had him on the floor and he pounded him, each hit a meaty sound, a death blow. But another beast dropped onto Edward's back, this one from the ceiling where he had perched.

Edward was quick. Spinning until he was on top of the beast, striking him one deadly blow.

I ran to the piercing call…it was Amuel. He laid on the floor, light pouring from his eyes, the siren sound pouring from his open mouth. It was hard to draw near, for the sound was of such intensity, my ears ached. I reached him and scooped him into my arms. He stopped at once. It was though he had passed out. It was as though he died.

There were three unholy beings who had invaded our halls. Emmett arrived next and made quick work of the one further down the hall hiding in the shadows. When the others arrived, Emmett instructed them to go to the rectory and check the door.

"These came from the sewers," Jasper called from a distance. "In the deeper level there's a drain…."

But I knew different.

As soon as Edward had defeated the first two, he came after me. I sat in the rocker holding my non-responsive son. I could not speak. I could not think.

Edward dropped on his knees and put his hand on the boy's chest. "He is only spent. He lives," he told me, tears of relief in his eyes. Jasper was there. Edward carefully took our son from me and laid him on the bed. Then the guard surrounded him. Edward had his hands over Amuel's heart, and he stared at his hands while the others sang.

Zane hung from Rosalie's back, unusually subdued. His dark eyes seemed fixed on me. I stood and took him from the sling, and he laid on me, his small body conforming to my own in rare surrender. Holding him for a few beats gave me comfort. When he started to squirm, I laid him next to his brother. Almost immediately Amuel's spirit was evident in his murky, empty eyes. As they'd done before, the babies turned toward one another. Slowly Amuel's arms raised, and his hands attracted Zane. The lion worked to graze his fists against his brother's long fingers.

Edward stayed beside me. This narrow bed was the place where I had spent the nights of my short and lonely years. And I had known Edward's love here. We watched the fruit of that love, the two small people who seemed so aware of one another. They were unique in ways I couldn't guess. To have seen my lamb so eerily different, fierce, capable of such a sound, for my innocent to have such knowledge of evil that he must give beyond his tiny self to warn us. He had frightened me. I had watched him die.

Edward pulled me into his arms. We moved away, to the floor. He sat first, and pulled me down, surrounding me with his strong arms and legs. There were no words. Only relief, only a distantly knocking terror that this thing would never be over.

Tanya ran in to report there were no fallen ones in the building. They were checking the tunnels now.

Edward soothed me. But I could not be soothed completely.

"He is a siren," he whispered.

"I thought…he…."

Edward sang in my ear as he gently rocked me. "Shhh. His gifts are not meant to crush him. He is a protector." Edward stroked over my hair, his hand so large and gentle, even though it was red and scraped from battle.

I took his battered hand into my own. I had not even had a concern for him as Amuel had been priority. "We're not safe," I tried to say, though my swollen throat made it hard to breathe much less speak.

Edward's warm hand gently collared the front of my neck. He hummed low. Almost immediately I felt my breathing ease.

Alice stood next to us, and stroked my hair, joining Edward in song. In her free arm she held Amuel.

Jasper waited by her patiently. Rose held Zane in her arms, and Emmett had his arm around her. "We have to go into the sewers," Emmett said.

I couldn't hear that. "No," I told Edward.

I knew Jasper worked on my mood. But he could never change my mind.


	33. Chapter 33

Penitent 33

What they know that I do not—it was always about the mother. It was always about her liberation.

I am angry at first. "You would justify this…hunt!"

But no. Others were coming to us, some from across the ocean. They were gathering. For war. It was so much larger than my anger, than myself.

"We have ached for our mother," Jasper said.

"Oh…you, the one who justifies!"

"No…Bella," Alice said, her hand on my arm, my son in her protective embrace.

"This world is not the place you came from. It's something else," I feebly reasoned.

"It is all connected, Bella. You know. We've always said it." Her eyes were large with truth. Amuel studied me. He hadn't liked my upset. His legs kicked in anticipation that I would hold him. He changed so quickly, but not as quickly as Zane who almost always held up his head.

"All this time we have felt her imprisonment. Her grief," Alice spoke gently, her hand still caressing Amuel's wavy red hair. "You of all of us should know…this world reflects what she cannot give, what's been taken away. She lost them…her children. All of them. So her sister has sent her, her own. And through them, and their union with who is left…newness will rise. The mother will know comfort again."

I wanted to scream out loud that it was a fable. Where was this mother, this lapsed parent when we were all running wild…when we were all dying? And yet…her children were gone. I had to keep facing it. I had to look in all of the dark corners, hard enough…but to do it now with my children…I could not let them perish. I would not.

"Love," Edward said, standing close and wrapping me in his arms.

"What more do I owe her?" I asked him. "You?"

"I did not come here to die," he whispered. "I came here to find you."

He kissed me then, his hands against my back, Amuel kicking between us.

But I knew something too. For nights since the fallen had manifested in our basement, I knew a growing truth in my heart. I'd been hiding it, fearful of what Edward would do. Yet, and now I saw, when I hid their subterfuge, I protected them. And I would not protect them.

"They came through our house. They come in at will…to show you they can," I said simply. "They have…stood close to our sons," I did not meet his eyes.

He is hesitant. I know his brow is creased. "How do you know this?"

"When I saw them there in the basement, and I realized what they were…it's power now. It will be small and deadly hits. They will attack…guerilla warfare. They will attack for days and days, years and years, weakening us by degrees with their audacity. They will drag it out…so we will feel each violation to its fullest. And just when we start to get off of our knees…they will strike once more until we are so weak…we can not run…we have no will to live." I hurried to the front of the church and climbed quickly into the pulpit, Amuel still in my arms.

"Bella," Edward called, but he took a few steps and stopped.

"Let my voice be strong in this place…it was made for a strong voice. It was made to capture a whisper and turn it into a shout," I said. "How long I sat here…mute."

I knew Edward struggled. He knew I spoke truth, but he would not forgive himself for failing to protect us.

I spoke to them all, but it's him I kept my gaze on. "You will look at the door, and see its strong appearance, and you will convince yourself it is undisturbed. But the door cannot hold them. Weep for humanity, weep. There is no protection against them if you refuse to see. This world belongs to them. Didn't you know?"

"Where is this coming from?" he asks, his hands out before him, as if to calm me, as if to silence me so he can rife through my words and make sure I won't be misjudged. He walks closer, but I am up high and far away.

"From a mother's heart," I say. "She has only just shown it to me…my cowardice. It's always that I've battled."

"Then speak, my Love," he whispers.

"We shall go to the source of their arrogance…but it will not be without cost. We shall save the mother. And then their power will be broken."

"Yes," Emmett roared.

But Edward watched me. "There is more?"

"Another part of me has died, the girl who was afraid of the shadows…who did not clean the hallways for fear of what she'd find. It was she who spoke before. But now…I dared to look. And the thing that killed humanity is the very thing that threatens us…greater than the fallen…greater then the chains that hold our mother. Fear. And only love casts it out. You told me that. But I only just heard you. I only just heard.

"That which we cannot destroy we will chain. But our mother…she shall go free," I said to him. Then to them all, my voice fierce and ringing, "She shall go free!"


	34. Chapter 34

Penitent 34

How did it feel to drop into the sewer? It felt like entering a catacomb, a long, endless corridor of darkness and possible death. At least that is how I saw it in my dreams. I had entered there once, long ago with Edward. When I thought about it, I could still smell it, the dampness and rot that at first promised a relief from the burning air up above, but soon proved even thinner and more suffocating. And I could hear it, the scurrying underground life.

"You can't go," Edward told me.

"It has to be me," I said, still lying spent in his arms after hours of love making. We had started out furious and passionate, and ended prolonging the gentlest expressions of love, staying connected even as we had dozed to awaken and begin yet again.

"You imagine this," he hissed, his eyes flashing dark as he moved away from me and rolled to sit on the edge of the bed.

I put my hand on his arm to calm him. "I'm the mother," I said.

"There are others now," he argued, standing and pulling on his jeans. 'The others,' meant Kate. There was the potential for two more as they'd also taken on humans.

"I am the one who bears her image," I said.

"Do not do this." His hands dug through his hair as he faced the wall.

"What? Tell the truth?" I rose and pulled a discarded gown over my head.

He turned to me now, his looked incredulous. "You are my wife. You owe them nothing more than what you've already been through. I am here to protect you now. Your cheeks have flesh again, and color for the first time. I look in your eyes and see rest and you are full. My love. My heart. Raising our boys is more than enough."

I go to him, but he is not ready to embrace me. "You have decided this Edward, but how many times have we had our understanding broadened by what is?"

He towers over me, bringing his face close, "I will forbid it. Our sons need their mother. They need your milk. They need your love and devotion. Who will raise them with such vision and sacrifice? Alice? Rose? That is what you will say. But it is your body they grew inside of, it is your heart they carry, your spirit that has given them their songs. Would I throw you in a sewer? Not for all the mothers…not for all the promises of all the mothers."

"Edward," I chided softly.

His finger grazed over my cheek, then his hand collared the back of my neck. "I need you," he said, willing to make himself this vulnerable to reason with me.

My hand went to his face. "Oh my heart, and I need you. I need you in this. How can I do this without your blessing?"

He pulled back, eyes furious. "You mean you would?"

I stared at my joined hands and said nothing.

He dropped to the bed and pulled on a boot. "Then I shall guard you. I shall make it so you cannot stir without my knowing." He stomped the boot, then picked up the other and did the same. "You force me to be this dark beast. You provoke me to madness…." He grabbed the statue of St. Teresa off of his nightstand and threw it against the bedroom wall. Its loud crash disintegrated the plaster. He looked quickly to my bare feet, then back to the damaged wall. He let out an exasperated breath.

"We are moving from this place. That door is warping you. You're obsessed with it. I tell you nothing has used it. I have made it stronger than the door to Hades, and yet you insist they mock me. You make me question my own strength, woman. You, who are to be my right hand." His darkness was taking over as he spoke. He had stood and started to pace, looking and sounding more the lion than he'd been of late, and the length of his dark hair, and the short beard he could grow in three days, the power in his body, the intense light in his eyes only added to the sense of fierceness that always lingered beneath his skin.

Zane's cries were sent up from the nursery he shared with Amuel. I hurried to him then. He was agitated and angry when I leaned over his crib. "Shh, shh," I comforted him, but he wouldn't still. I picked him up and tried to cradle his head but he kept slamming it against my shoulder as he wailed.

"Let me take him," Edward startled me he was so near. I surrendered our son to the strong, scarred arms of his father. Edward, shirtless, walked the floor and rocked Zane in his arms, the words Caius had etched in his skin long ago, still visible, running over his body like tattoos, lines his boys now loved to explore, but still Zane fought. Edward started to sing, a song I knew was just for Zane, a song about a lion cub whose bravery sometimes got him into trouble. I knew the song would do as much to calm the father as it would the son.

Amuel was also awake. I went to change him, then lifted him and took him to the chair to feed him. Zane was slowly calming, his wail changing to one long off-key note as he attempted to sing with Edward.

When Amuel had eaten, Edward handed me Zane who was now more submissive than usual, and still attempting to sing. I tried to give him my breast to feed, but he held my gaze and made the long sour note, as if he sang to me. Edward stood next to me watching, and grinning. We had never witnessed such a communication from our son. When he was finished, he latched onto my nipple with his usual gusto, and Edward and I were left to laugh a bit. It seems Amuel had been just as riveted by his brother's performance. "I feel like I need to make a speech," Edward said. And as if on cue, Zane left off nursing, and with a rivulet of milk running across his fat cheek, he picked up the note and sang again, his eyes on his father or brother this time.

"He is proud of this," I whispered.

"As am I," Edward said, his eyes never leaving his son. "He is a warrior and a singer. Like his brother, he is gifted in strength and leadership."

"They are so…." I reached for Edward, tears in my eyes.

"I am sorry I was harsh, my love. I have no reason when I think of your protection."

"I understand. I am not being foolish."

"Without you, I would not want to live…but they would know such a loss. They are like me in that they will always need a woman's pure love to understand who they are. First that was my mother. Then long years of darkness and war. It made your love all the more sweet when I came out of it to this life, but for them, that darkness without would start while they are barely formed."

"Edward, you speak as though I will perish for sure. Have some faith in yourself and the others. I don't intend to go alone. What kind of world will they have if the mother of it, its source, is held in chains? They will always be under attack. Have some faith that I can go there and do my part, whatever it is, and live to return. I will have you, and Jasper and Emmett. Why think the worst? It keeps you from opening yourself to my call. You and I…we can't be selfish now. We are living for our sons. We are living for the others. We are leaders. You know what this means. We have to put the greater good first or we become tyrants, living only for ourselves, our power."

His look is grim. There is enough heat in his gaze to melt me. But I am too old now to melt, and too certain.

Before he speaks, there is a knock on the outer door. I leave him, still carrying Zane, and attend to the guest. It is Rose. She is happy to see Zane. He alone, and sometimes Emmett, brings out her brightest smiles. She eagerly takes him from me. When she does, he breaks out into his song again, surprising me, and her most of all.

But her joy soon ebbs as she seems to listen. She holds him out from her, her hands under his arms as his legs hang limp, and he sings and sings.

"What is it?" Edward asks her as he still holds Amuel against his massive chest.

"The door is breached," Rose says, "the door is breached. They walk through our house. It is as my mother said," Rose whispers.

Edward looks to me, never more terrified. He hands Amuel to me, and pushes me toward Rose as he hurries to the back of the house where the panty is off of the kitchen.

I hear his cry, and Rose and I run after. The muscles in his back are ridged and hard as if he has just hefted a tree. He faces the open door that leads to the sewer. The fetid dank air coming from it moves his hair. He puts back his head and lets out a roar so terrible, I cover Amuel's ears and draw my head deep into my neck.

Edward slams the door then, and stands panting, his hands upon it as if it is a damn ready to burst. His head is hanging. "Tell Emmett and Jasper we go tonight," he says low.


	35. Chapter 35

Penitent 35

They lay side by side in one crib, asleep. I have managed to hold the alarm I feel from these two small miracles of my and Edward's love. Jasper has stayed with them to create a refuge of calm. He will stay behind with Alice and Kate to keep them in this secure womb.

Edward pulls me away and I do not resist. Lingering will only weaken me, and it's for them, for my children and the children who come after, that I must go.

Our plans have been short and intense. I will move in a guarded circle. Edward's focus is on me. He worries so he tries to control. I want to tell him he cannot spare me. That whatever force is at work, a force larger than him, larger than me, we must trust.

He does not trust, will not leave anything to chance. He moves in the energy of his anger, and it is a dangerous energy and a false source. It will take from him in the end, and leave him with the certain message—we control nothing.

So I allow him his struggle, as he must allow me mine. There is no time to confront one another, and that frustration is fueling him, too much.

Outside the man-hole cover is off and they drop into the sewers one by one on silent feet. I am not first. Edward had others go before, ones he will sacrifice if he must, I know. All are expendable when it comes to my protection, most of all himself.

He drops first, and like before takes steps back up the ladder to assist me down the slow, human way. His arm stays around my waist, but it is not comfortable as his steps are always longer than mine. So he altars them, and I feel the tension in the hand that grips my waist, and settles like a vice on my belt. He is the lion, fierce in his look, dark in his visage, in his voice, he is the one to cling to a carcass, a bloody carcass, he is the one to move without mercy if need be, the terrible one, the most fearsome, one who has laid aside goodness without boundary or conscience. One that riveted on the goal of keeping me alive.

How different are our purposes now. His mission is short, mine stretches into the eons, into the very fate of this world.

His is the outrage that the darkness would take his very heart.

So we walk, and the hand, the gripping hand, the way it makes me stop abruptly or go forward with urgency, that hand tells me everything about him.

There is a fight ahead. A call to let us know it is clear. We hold our own lights. We walk in a tiled arch, through sludge that deepens, then lessens, that is foul and brown and watery. There is death, and this is the water of death. Bodies along the walls, moved there, stacked like wood in places, and just when I think I will scream, I remember my purpose, the mother, the mother, and it is then I walk as swiftly as my husband.

There is movement behind us, far back, then the signal to keep moving. I know these calls now. How long I have journeyed as one of them.

They do not sing here, but we trudge. We are not weary, not yet. We hasten toward we know not what.

Emmett leads us. Rose is close to him. Emmett runs lightly, sometimes on the curve of the wall where one should not be able to find purchase. Yet he does, and Rose does, and I often catch a glimpse of them far down the tube.

Edward has drawn me close to himself. It is how I know trouble is near long before I see it. At one point he pulls me swiftly onto his back, and before I can protest he tells me to still. I am worried that my dirty boots will muddy the front of his black trench coat, but filth does not bother him, does not faze him, and so I ride there, and he grips my leg with one hand, for the other holds a weapon, a club that is so wicked in design it could rise up and kill by itself it seems.

I can feel his focus change knowing he has me so attached. He moves closer to the front of the army, and there is a new eagerness in his gait. His shoulders are so powerful, I feel like my arms are a child's as they wrap around his neck. I hold my forehead against his hair now and then to convey to him my deep love. And in that, I can feel him surrendering to what is.

So when they come, and they do, I am with him, feeling the great heaving of muscle in his arms and back before I have registered the depth of the attack. They are a pocket of survivors, but they are not like others I've seen. There is a child with them, and Rose had struck this child as she protected herself from attack. "What is this perversion," I hear Emmett say as he puts his arms around Rose.

Edward draws closer to the small form that lays half in the water, near the several dead adults. This child is also dead, but it is a smaller replica of the beast and the bird and the man that is this new breed.

"Gather yourself," Edward speaks sternly to Rose. "They would strike a blow to your heart, but you cannot show mercy to this. This is the very thing that will destroy the children you are sworn to protect. They have bred with the fallen. Man and demon forces. You understand that we cannot co-exist. There is no treaty with evil."

Rose swallows and nods as she stares at the small perverted form that is only shocking in its obvious early stage of life.

"This is their answer to humanity's fall. This is their new breed. They imitate us. Always imitate us," Edward addresses them all. "It is this we will fight down here. The pure ones will be close to her, it's they who seek to behead my wife, but these seek the ashes up above for that is how they feed. You see how close they are to the top. These are the ones who seek to devour my children."

I am gripping his shoulders, and trying not to vomit. We are hated.

"This is their pantry, their food supply. They have gleaned human, rotting flesh…to feed their spawn." Edward said. "Walk with courage. You will battle here in a new way. You must not be wounded in your conscience. It's then they will behead you."

Agreement ran through the ranks. Edward nodded to Emmett. Rose looked at Edward and nodded. "Carry on," he said, "and do not forget what you have learned here."

And so we continued. The tunnels were endless. We stayed the course in the main one, but two of the circle would break off here and there and scope out the off-shoots far enough to get a sense of whether or not they were occupied.

They would call to one another, and again I could read nearly all of their signals. There was life everywhere they checked. Each of the tunnels had a purpose or a cell of life or activity. In some of the side tunnels quick and desperate battles took place, but we lost no one. We kept moving. We kept moving. Toward the mother.


	36. Chapter 36

Penitent 36

We killed. Edward was fevered from the killing. I walked now, but he kept me close, always a hand on me, always checking.

Human and fallen. A new race. We killed them in all of their sizes, in all of their forms.

"We must stop what should have never been," Edward said to the others, each time a battle was over.

Many times these new ones were too weak to fight as if their own hybrid-state had failed to produce even the average strength of either species. The weak ones were often attached to the food supply—the remnants of humans in such a state of decay they were barely recognizable. The hybrids would attach themselves, their wings pumping weakly as they seemed to have no other purpose but to feed, as if they had grown so quickly and perversely they hadn't caught up to it.

These perversions were knocked to pulp by Emmett and Rose as they passed. What they missed was soon destroyed by the Denali sisters.

And so we progressed in the infinite labyrinth of shame. And it was miles in, days in surely, that the beating started, the slow faint thrum from deeper in, so light at first, noticed only by me, not for its resinous pitch, but for its beat felt first in my wrists crossed beneath Edward's chin, and then further up my arms, until my own heart blended in, and I couldn't be sure I hadn't heard my own beating pulse all along.

But Edward heard it. He answered me before I could ask. "If the earth had a pump, then I feel it in this putrid water. I feel it under my feet."

"It runs through me," I said.

"Through you and deeper," he answered.

"It tells the way," I whispered.

"So it does," he said.

"The way," Rose echoed, and through the Denali's behind us, "The way." And all the way throughout the ranks this echoed, but it was not overt, but rather notes, sounds.

Emmett and Rose seemed to understand as they followed the drum. They ran high on the walls, the strength in their legs evident, in their arms as they held weapons, Emmett a club similar to Edward's though of a heavier iron, and Rose a spear in one hand, a huge wicked knife in the other. Their weapons were crusted with kill-matter, their hands were strong on the hilts.

The pace became speedier. I had long since taken up my place on Edward's back. So he carried me to my fate. So he would share in it. But often, he would take my hand loose from where it gripped, and he would kiss it long and warmly. And I would run that hand over his shoulder down to his heart where I would press my fingers. And my love.

Battles would break out, and Edward would run through them. We ran now. He did not look right or left or hesitate. We went deeper, and the others would catch up. Rose would spring ahead, then Emmett. I would sense the Denalis close behind. We ran, and ran. And ran. Feet in the water, feet in the sludge, in the death.

And the beating drum inside of me now, running up my arms, until I was the drum. And the beat and the drum.

He dropped before us, that old one we could not destroy. Caius. He side-stepped Emmett while three more fallen ones dropped onto his massive frame. He flattened Rose against the wall and two more were upon her at once. Edward ran to him and cut him deep, but he slashed at Edward as he fell and I heard the fabric of Edward's coat tear.

I jumped off then, and sought a place on the wall as they locked in deadly struggle, one giant black jumble of hate. I inched along, leaving my love behind, even as the beating, drumming, pulsing drew me on, even as I side-stepped the others, and left the sounds of battle behind me, even as each step brought an ever echoing splash, as I slid and righted myself and came to a split, one tunnel left, one right, even as I chose the one that spoke the loudest, and the truest, and I let the black hollow suck me in.

I ran, and I ran, and it grew darker, but my ears did not fail, could not as the whole tunnel was a pipe on the beating drum's organ, a singular pulse.

I slid, I stumbled but stayed on my feet, upright again and running, running toward the sound.

When it grew so loud that it seemed to make my very brain breathe with its incessant gavel smash, the tunnel opened then, and I halted in a large, cavernous opening whose dank air denoted a depth of earth I had not imagined reaching, and I felt the miles between myself and everyone I'd known or loved.

In the center was a glow. And a form that lay beside the glow. It was not a fire, it was a light, and it came from the ground itself, the rocky, slick ground. So the form, which I could not make out, seemed to be a ring, a ring of earth, but as I drew closer, it was not a ring at all, but a crescent shaped form, as dark as the rock, as grainy as the soil that lay strewn about. It had the form of a woman, and it was a woman, but whether she came from the earth or the earth came from her, I could not tell, but she was one with it, another dying corpse, or a corpse not yet born, I could not tell, there was no warmth, no light.

I fell to my knees. And when I did, the glow from the strange light that came from a hole in the earth, grew brighter, so bright that it seemed to slice to the high ceiling, and then I saw what I had not seen. They lined the walls like bats. They were the darkness. I had run past them, all along the way, and here they congregated, the very heart of their existence, around her, the mother who had no life, and me. I felt the wetness on my thighs, and it was blood. I had started to menstruate, the first time since I'd given birth. They stirred, and it was a great sweeping sound, a bellows sound that blended with the beating, the pulsing, and I put my hands over my chest and realized…I was the drum. I was the life.

I lifted my eyes then, I looked as high as the ceiling would allow, the great dome of the fallen ones, and I thought of my sons, I thought of Edward, and the love I felt was so enormous, I thought my body would break open like an old wine skin, and in its place would be my shiny, bloody, glory.

I stood then, my feet strong on this solid hellish place, and I lifted my arms and opened my hands, and I stood over the light, and my blood ran down my legs like a fountain, and it hissed as it fell into the light, and the warmth of the light and the blood merged on my legs, on the apex, the place where I experienced love and birth, the holy place, and the fallen took up a low groan, and it was not pleasure.

I brought my gaze down to her. She was more pronounced now, as though her form had risen more clearly and cleanly from the rock. She was so womanly, I saw that now, her breasts, her waist, the roundness of her hips, her shapely legs and small feet. She was so clearly a woman. I felt my milk run then, soaking my shirt, sliding over my stomach. I knew it ran to join the blood. I knew it flowed down to the light that came from the earth.

She moved. Did she move? The walls moved, the ceiling. One dropped down from high above, but the fall had been heavy and hard. Then another. And she moved, even as they thudded around us. And my heart beat the loudest then, and I was wet, so wet, and I took off my shoes first, my socks. My belt, my pants. I took the coat away and threw it down. My shirt. I took off the undergarments and the tie from my hair. I shook it out, heavy and long, and they continued to fall around me, like meteors from the sky, they fell.

And she sat up than, stretching as though from sleep. They fell all around us, but they did not fall on her. Or me. And my heart thudded so completely, that I stood still, the light from below warming me, the liquids from my body flowing down, hissing down.

She was before me. We were the same height. We looked alike. Our hair was the same length. But she was ruddy, as if all colors were in her skin, in her eyes. She was so beautiful, I gasped.

And she put her hands over my heart. She held them there, and slowly, slowly, the pounding drum grew softer, until it was just a heartbeat, my heartbeat underneath my chest, underneath her hands.

I breathed easier, even as the fallen ones fell, even as they fell so thick, one atop another.

My heartbeat was hers too now. She ran her hands over my breasts and coated them with milk. She took this milk and rubbed her own breasts.

Then she reached to the apex of my legs and let my blood fill her hands. She rubbed her hands together, and smoothed this blood over her own center.

Then smiling, she took my hands, and she moved me to stand where she had been, and she took her place over the light. And the light seemed to fill her flesh until it glowed.

They hurried away now. They hurried, and they scurried, and dragged their dead away. They squeaked and crowed as they hurried out of the cavernous room.

"I am not your mother," she called to all the fleeing creatures, in a strong melodious voice. "I am not your mother."

And so the exodus continued, and she held my hands.

When they had left, she moved her lovely face toward me and kissed me on the lips. I felt myself still. I felt myself heal. The flowing stopped, and her light became mine as mine became hers. She broke the kiss and drew back from me. "Go now," she told me. "He waits for you."

I stepped away and gathered my clothes, but I did not put them on. I looked over my shoulder at her, and she stood there, straddling the light that was coming more and more from her than from the earth she stood upon. "We are the heart," she said to me as she beckoned me away. "We are the life."

"You are my mother," I whispered. Then I turned away then and hurried with one thought on my mind, 'Edward.'

And he was by the entrance, against the wall. He stood there, his eyes on me, his face at ease and beautiful. He reached for my clothes, and took them from me, despicable as I knew they were, as I must be. He bent and eased my feet into my socks. Then he found my under-things and tenderly put them on me. Next my outer clothes, my shoes, and then my coat.

When he was finished he looked to the mother and said a word I did not understand. She answered, the same word. He picked me up then, as though I was his bride, and he carried me over the threshold, from the center of the world, to the tunnel that would eventually lead to our front door.

"What did you say to her?" I asked.

He kissed me then, once, and then once more. "I said thank-you," he choked on the word and kissed me yet again.

And so it was over.


	37. Chapter 37

Penitent 37

Two years later:

"He is yours," I laugh as I lay our one year old son in Edward's lap. "He's worse than his brothers for energy and high-jinxes."

"That's a lot to lay on one so small," Edward said, taking the ginger-haired baby from me. When I straightened from laying his son in his arms, he leaned forward to kiss my bulging stomach. Yes, I was pregnant again. Yes, I seemed to have nothing but twins, as did Kate, and the others who'd mated with humans. Always a boy and a girl, the perfect balance. We were hearty bearers of children. My love-making with Edward was robust and insatiable, the high-light of my existence, next to caring for the fruit of our rapture. And I continued to grow stronger, so strong I barely suffered the normal dilemmas of pregnancy. And now that our environment grew less stressful and dangerous, my energy went less into trying to stay alive and more into nurturing the children his frequent and enthusiastic love making gave me.

These new ones we called Tamara and Jamine. They were big for their ages, as if the rest my dear husband insisted I get each and every day now that we were in one place, and the food he spoiled me with, and the doting care, as if all of that goodness had resided in them and made them specimens of humanity.

As for Amuel and Zane, at two and a half years of age, they were more advanced than I could have imagined. Amuel was already learning to read. Zane's physical prowess was something to marvel at and fear. It was not uncommon to catch him scaling the walls of the church, both inside and out. He had no fear of heights…no fear of anything, but perhaps, his father, on the rare occasions that Edward showed displeasure, for his general attitude toward this son was uncommon patience, to the point where I had to sometimes step in and say, no. And no.

There were times Zane's temper got the best of him. Edward would take him then, for long times of togetherness when his father would hold him and sing to him. Zane loved these songs. He would study Edward's face with grave interest as he sang to him. Zane tried to learn all of the sounds, and though he was loud and often off-key, he sang with his father much of the time.

There was much to do. In our area, we worked constantly to renew it. Supplies were gathered and organized, and housed in several of the larger buildings. Corrupt buildings were torn down, and the building materials categorized and stacked. Foundations were filled in. Parks were being cultivated, and gardens. Within the ghost-like decay of our city, a circle of clean, organized life was emerging. Slowly the circle was widening.

Those who could not have children were the guardians, the aunts and uncles of our growing population. They helped in the raising and nurturing. In that way we were all parents.

The fallen had not died, but they no longer were a threat. Without a mother they were weak and scattered. We did not see them or feel their influence. We set an ever-changing guard around our mother. It was the highest honor to go into the depths and serve in her presence. By turns we prepared for it, and were sent there with ceremony.

How we loved her. Our source.

Edward calls to me, and I have to go now, to see the new thing, usually it has something to do with one of our babies. This time it is Amuel, perched on Father Charles' pulpit, swinging his legs and clapping his hands, loving the sound of his voice echoing as he yells words, which made sense. He is very articulate for one so young, and this pulpit draws him, nearly everyday he sits upon it and gives us his words. "Love.," he says in his small but strong voice, "love each other, be kind, be truthful, and have courage. Live for your brothers and sisters. Never forget the love of your mother. Take her love into the world. And grow strong under your father's protection. Until you are the father or mother. Until it is your time to lead…in love."

We laugh and clap with joy. Amuel spreads out his arms and laughs with us. He then starts to sing, one of the old songs from the far away world. His voice was so innocent and pure, it seemed to calm us and inspire us all at once. Others came from different rooms in the church, until there were forty of us or so, and still he sang, soon joined by his brother Zane who climbed easily to the high perch where his brother sang so openly. They put their arms around one another, as Edward's arm slid around me. My husband and I smiled at one another, as the sound of our sons singing about love and kindness filled our ears. Edward kissed me then, and I realized, we stood like this in the very pew I'd sat in those long years before, a girl, with a rag in her hand who saw the penitent go by on his knees, his arms open, his hands open, and it was then I knew…love.


End file.
